A.I.
What Ableton taught us about AI and the future of coding
In 2001, Ableton turned bedroom producers into festival headliners. Now vibe coding is doing the same for software. The parallels run deeper than you'd think.
Creative Business
Lessons from starting things that worked, flopped, and taught more than any MBA. The messy reality of building creative ventures - decisions, mindsets, and the bits nobody warns you about.
I've started things that worked, things that flopped, and things that taught me more than any MBA could. These pieces are about the messy reality of building creative ventures - the decisions, the mindsets, and the bits nobody warns you about.
Start Here
The essential reads on creative business
Best of...
Making it in America: What international founders & creatives actually need to know
The cultural paradoxes, identity costs, and hidden rules nobody explains
Best of...
The Creative Technologist comeback
How a misunderstood role from the digital agency era is becoming essential for the AI age
Best of...
The McCartney Method: Mastering the Magic of Audience Connection
Paul McCartney’s secret to staying timeless: meticulous details, unforgettable fan moments, and a generosity that creates magic every show.
Best of...
7 ways to improve a conference speaking proposal
I’ve just finished evaluating proposals for SXSW 2025. Here are 7 things that separate the standouts from the rest.
Best of...
5 Founder Types
Which one are you?
How-To Guides
Practical playbooks for building your business
Creative Business
How to run a retrospective that actually works
Six months after a project you can barely remember what you learned. Here's a one-hour framework that fixes that - using conversation, transcription, and AI to capture the insights that usually vanish.
How-To Guides
What I've learned from evaluating 1000+ SXSW proposals
Every year, I find myself deep in proposal evaluation mode. Fortune 100 CEOs, ambitious VPs, indie strategists, even actors and
Future Of Work
An antidote to AI tinnitus
Sam Altman says agency and adaptability will be extremely valuable. But what does cultivating them actually look like?
Creative Business
Lemon automation: How Chick-fil-A processes 20% of America's lemons... and what it means for your career
The unexpected career insights hidden in a chicken restaurant's remarkable lemon-squeezing operation
Best of...
The McCartney Method: Mastering the Magic of Audience Connection
Paul McCartney’s secret to staying timeless: meticulous details, unforgettable fan moments, and a generosity that creates magic every show.
Creative Business
Two ways to define 'Good Enough'
Ever found yourself endlessly tweaking a project, chasing that elusive perfection? Yeah, me too. But here's a thought.
Battle Scars
Hard-won lessons from entrepreneurial endeavours
Building something creative?
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All Posts
Everything on creative business and entrepreneurship
Teaching
The freezer or the morgue: a quick primer on innovation
As part of on-boarding for a new project I was asked to put together a quick 10
minute introductory talk
Entrepreneurial Endeavours
Building creative businesses: The Power of 3
This is part of a series of articles on building creative businesses. Sign up
here [http://eepurl.com/c-RGY5]for
The Tension
Are you an artist or a frame maker?
Why it’s worth knowing which role you’re best suited for, and how valuable it
can be when looking
Stage Left
Credit to the Edit
How editing got me hooked on movies, and why it’s such an important and
underrated skill to develop whatever
In The Neighborhood
The Intrapreneur in action
You may have noticed a growing number of companies offering innovation and
business transformation services. Some of them are deeply
Entrepreneurial Endeavours
Introducing Zorro: projects for hybrid talent
TL;DR: Zorro is a new solution for connecting companies to multi-disciplinary
talent. We work with proud generalists – the operators,
Battle Scars
Your customer list is worth nothing
A few years ago I heard a prominent figure was leaving one of my company’s big
competitors.
He wasn’
Entrepreneurial Endeavours
Three way traffic
A couple of weeks ago I went to a networking event here in NYC.
As with many such events, a
Creative Business
Introducing Ohm: the talent agent for your career
(Summary: Ohm [http://www.takeohm.com] is a new, free way to connect with
emerging and established professionals in the
Entrepreneurial Endeavours
Startup scoping: Swimming back to shore
Recently I’ve been validating a couple of new project ideas, doing my best to
follow the core principles of
Battle Scars
When you’re not killing it
This post by well-known DJ and producer Tiga
[https://facebook.com/officialtiga/photos/a.72416460836.108308.57755305836/10155334073875837/?type=3]
Culture & Insights
Behind the scenes at Europe’s most eco-friendly major music festival
Roskilde Festival started in the Danish town of the same name in 1971, and has
grown to host over 110,
Stage Left
7 lessons from the story of CAA
A few months ago, James Andrew Miller released his new book telling the tale of
Creative Artists Agency (CAA), one
Battle Scars
How one club night became the turning point for my business
In February 2009 I left a promising career in advertising to build a music
company.
My vision, albeit partially formed,
Innovation
Could you take a bite out of your own business?
Becoming the cannibal
Sketch 3. Image: Cult of Mac
Earlier this week an article by Marc Hemeon of Design Inc.
Culture & Insights
The rise of the remixer
Why remixing is going to become more and more important in the future of content
and creativity.
Remixing has been
Mindsets & Growth
Note-taking, creativity and 80s action movies
I have a fondness for mid-late 1980s action movies.
Nothing particularly unusual there for a person of my vintage, except
Coaching
Where’s the mentoring in the music industry?
Career fuel, career angst and passing the torch
this article originally appeared in edition 3 of The Manifesto
[http://www.