Hey Must Readers, why is it April seems like a blur?
I hope you have all been well.

Today I’m sharing a few must-reads, listens and must-watches with a few recommendations thrown in.

As the shows were the most clicked items last month, here’s two more shows:
(i) Rooster (HBO in US, Sky in the UK) TV show - light, silly funny and makes you want to watch more straight away (like a funnier Ted Lasso) and
(ii) Your friends and neighbours on AppleTV - often hilarious while tackling serious topics in softer ways and importantly you can binge easily. AppleTV definitely has the best programing.

Onto the must reads, listens and watches

Alpha School has rethought school from the ground up. From how AI can scale teaching to offering humans as support networks and coaching. If you ever want to hear someone who’s disrupted an industry and 100% believes everything they are working towards, Alpha school is the product and the service many kids won’t know they want until they get there

It is rare to see companies give in to fans, especially when shutting down its tech. I’ve previously spoken about community, superfans and fandom at length and now fans + nostalgia is a power brands just can’t and don’t really put a price on.

Superfan Finances…Direct To Fan Winning - Patreon is one of the most trusted platforms for direct to fan engagements, they announced a record year with 33% YOY growth. With podcasts being the connective medium for a lot of creators, it will be interesting to see how other platforms compete and how other platforms sweep in (also good to be known for something)

Here are the top paid podcasts on Patreon - https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators/podcasts (with a number of sports pods topping)

Journalists get a bad rap sometimes. But the ones we rarely see or hear about are the cornerstone of the industry, the ones who are running around defying tech shifts and getting the stories

I often beat up Amazon on drone delivery - they used to use press releases to announce product innovation and then nothing, however, this video made me laugh, i’m not sure about the impact on the contents but kinda funny. This is also a good listen about how Irish entrepreneur Bobby Healy has started to crack drone delivery

Funny but interesting read about the impacts of GLP-1s on an industry that was rigged for many years. Industries hate disruptions especially causing more work…peptides are the hottest things being developed so keep an eye in this space and the ripples they are causing.

Most brands didn’t “lose” their place in the market. They drifted there, one campaign, one trend-chasing post, one CEO quote at a time.

Over the last decade, channels have quietly hijacked the strategy. SEO rewired how we write, social rewarded outrage and stunts, COVID forced short-term pivots, short-form video made everything about the next 3 seconds, and now AI is warping how ideas are created, distributed and judged. In that chaos, brands ballooned into weird shapes – pulled into politics, events and culture they don’t fully understand, then wondering why nobody recognises them anymore. So I tackled this head on…

Roblox is a fascinating and extremely successful company. A platform with over 100m players who then turn into builders and the majority actually have the ability to earn from building. This is the playbook a lot of AI leaning companies are trying to understand (FWIW Molly has a shtick in her interviews so can come across different to normal tech podcasters). If you have kids or children in your life you know how important roblox is

Podcaster and increasing New Media figure Ed Elson wrote a hugely popular tweet on how clips are now the main event and he wasn’t wrong, the majority of clips are manufactured to be consumed and influence audiences, from podcasts, mocked up interviews and from live streams. Smart people worked out many years ago that Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook and more recently LinkedIn are primed with audience who will want to consume short clips to fill their boredom time, most often with something enraging to cause engagement. What is often missed is the millions of clips shared in huge chat groups, across iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram and group DMs on IG sparking a load of debate and enragement and because its semi private and private by choice most won’t see their influence.

This interview is worth the 30 minute listen/watch if you’re interested to see how the next 6-12 months will be shaped and how clips are often weaponised.

Better for you soda winners? Poppi has finally arrived in the UK after a big Pepsi acquisition, I came across this interesting breakdown of where soda advertisers spend and the % of their spend. Coca Cola used to want to be in your eyes every 6 seconds we have came a long way with online spending and investing into different channels

Who knew there was a notification database on iPhones? The FBI did and they used this feature to read deleted messages from a deleted chat app Signal. With tech whats often deleted doesn’t mean its gone

Elon Musk is a figure who divides an opinion like very few, on one of my favourite podcasts, guest Jon McNeill (one of Elon’s most trusted execs) talks about his principles, his frameworks (you can steal most of them) and how observing can lead to the best action and results sequence.  

No more scrolling Google or IG — its new AI “Intelligence Layer” (powered by their historical 20B+ rides & orders) now recommends restaurants, trips & businesses right in their (super app) app, based on your habits, time of day & location. It’s showing what the west world misses - Discovery → Transaction in one seamless flow (we are still not ready for an app this powerful in the West but expect almost every major AI company to try this approach over the next 18months)

Taylor fights AI - many others have taken similar steps but the first mainstream artist who’s gone first

Language is important. Words are important. Now a study shows Emojis are hard to understand and translate. 

I interviewed Dr Kelly Monahan who is a work researcher and helps fortune 1000 companies improve, we dive into AI’s impact, the essential culture point most “leaders” are missing with mass firing and why the future of work might look and operate very differently.

The business of the Biebers, how Hailey and Justin collaborate for commercial success (they are actively leveraging the attention economy and their controversy to drive business growth) 

Got any questions or comments on any of the Must Reads, or want to chat through Marketing, Growth or AI, get in touch [email protected] or hit reply

I am coaching CEOs, CMOs & Product leaders and consulting.
I also run AI workshops and AI hackathons, so get in touch