Hey everybody,
I must admit… after spending the past week in Chicago, I think it’s my favorite American city to visit, tied with Washington D.C.
Some quick reflections:
Chicago is more casual than the other major American cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
If you want to learn about Chicago, start with the fire in 1873. Since the entire city was destroyed and had to be re-built, demand for construction was high. Architects got a clean state to redesign the city with no central plan. Skeleton construction, with steel frames were invented. Since they weighed less, buildings could go higher. Thus, Chicago was one of the fastest growing cities in the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Art Institute is outstanding, especially the Monet room in the Impressionism wing. To be honest, I didn’t appreciate Monet’s brilliance until this past week. Most people talk about the Water Lillies, but I was struck by the lilac-painted images of sunsets and cityscapes.
I also fell in love with Frederic Remington’s sculptural depictions of horses in the American Old West. His sculptures may be frozen, but they feel so alive.
Chicago has the only elevated downtown train system in the United States (all the other cities have underground subways), which gives Chicago extra charm.
Yes, it’s cold. Super cold. But the cold weather enables a medley of indoor activities. The city is filled with indoor arcades, hot chocolate, and heavy foods such as doughnuts and deep dish pizza.
Chicago has the best architecture of any city in America. Seriously. My favorite new building is the Harold Washington Library, which was completed in 1991.
Fresh Ideas
North Star Podcast: Web Smith
I recorded a podcast with Web Smith, the founder of 2PM, Inc. a curated, subscription-based media company with quick commentary on brands, data, and eCommerce. He invests in and advises for digitally native vertical brands, and spends most of his time in the intersection of digital media and eCommerce.
We talked about:
The Direct-to-Consumer Craze
The rise of Dollar Stores across America
The secrets of Supreme
Why Nike is so successful
Marketing lessons from Casey Neistat
Listen Here: iTunes | Overcast | Spotify
Article: Never-Ending Now
Re-surfacing one of my favorite articles from 2018…
The structure of our social media feeds place us in a “Never-Ending Now.” Social media sucks us into a temporal myopia. Like hamsters running on a wheel, we live in an endless cycle of ephemeral content consumption. As a result, we lose our sense of history.
Consider the time-bias of our major social media feeds:
Snapchat: 24 Hours or Less
Instagram Stories: 24 Hours or Less
The Instagram Feed: 3 Days or Less
Facebook: 5 Days or Less
Twitter: 2 Days or Less
Due time bias of our social media feeds, we’re trapped in a “Never Ending Now” — blind to our place in history, overwhelmed by the slightest breeze of chaos. Stuck in the “Never Ending Now,” we ignore the lessons of history. Luckily, with just a couple taps, we can change that.
Coolest Things I Learned This Week
The Booming Health Economy
“Wellness has morphed, culturally, from a luxury into a responsibility. And companies who sell that sense of responsibility also sell a sense of accomplishment. The idea that you are taking care of yourself, that your weight — even if it’s not where you want it to be — is something that you’re working on."
"Americans spent $19 billion on gym memberships last year — and a further $33 billion on sports equipment. But the study’s most significant feature was the scale of millennial spending: 36 per cent of 18- to 36-year-olds paid for a gym membership — twice the percentage of people older than them.”
"Equinox’s 92 clubs currently have about 350,000 global members, who spend a “blended average” of about $3,500 each year. Blink Fitness is closing in on almost 400,000 members spending about $250 a year.”
Sources: Vox, Financial Times
Love this Quote
“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Maria Papova on Information Consumption
John O’Donohue: On Attraction
"There is a lovely disarray that comes with attraction. When you find yourself deeply attracted to someone, you gradually begin to lose your grip on the frames that order your life. Indeed, much of your life becomes blurred as that countenance comes into clearer focus. A relentless magnet draws all your thoughts towards it.
Wherever you are, you find yourself thinking about the one who has become the horizon of your longing. When you are together, time becomes unmercifully swift. It always ends too soon. No sooner have you parted than you are already imagining your next meeting, counting the hours. The magnetic draw of that presence renders you delightfully helpless.
A stranger you never knew until recently has invaded your mind; every fibre of your being longs to be closer.”
China’s Infrastructure
Between 2011 and 2013, china used 50% more cement than the United States in the 20th century.
Of the world’s 100 highest bridges, 81 are in China, including some unfinished ones.
In 2016 alone, China added 26,100 bridges on roads, including 363 “extra large” ones with an average length of about a mile, government figures show.
China opens around 50 high bridges each year. The entire rest of the world opens ten.
China also has the world’s longest bridge, the 102-mile Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge, a high-speed rail viaduct running parallel to the Yangtze River, and is nearing completion of the world’s longest sea bridge, a 14-mile cable-stay bridge skimming across the Pearl River Delta, part of a 22-mile bridge and tunnel crossing that connects Hong Kong and Macau with mainland China.
Why Are Chips and Coca-Cola Addicting?
Here’s Warren Buffett: “Cola has no taste memory. You can drink one at 9am, 11am, 5pm. You can't do that with cream soda, root beer, orange, grape. You get sick of them after a while. The average person drinks 64 ounces of liquid per day, and you can have all 64 ounces of that be Coke.”
Same with Doritos, Cheetos, most popular junk food. They are engineered to overcome “sensory-specific satiety” and to give a sense of “vanishing caloric density.”
What is Gail.com?
This is crazy…..
Gail.com gets 5,000 views a day and millions of emails because people mistype Gmail.com. The domain was purchased as a gift in 1996 for a mans wife. They still own the domain which is now just a plain html page with a lot of questions answered about the site.
(Thanks to Nick Maggiulli for sending this)
Lessons on Landlocked Countries
As a general rule, being landlocked creates political and economic handicaps that access to the high seas avoids. For this reason, states large and small across history have striven to gain access to open waters, even at great expense in wealth, bloodshed, and political capital.
Some landlocked countries are quite affluent, such as Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Austria, all of which frequently employ neutrality to their political advantage.
Is This the Best Presentation Ever?
Photo of the Week
Some fun news!
Sara Dietschy (a friend who is a YouTuber with 430,000 subscribers) invited me on her podcast, That Creative Life, and I had to say yes. It was my first time on another podcast. I was waiting for the right opportunity. The right host, the right time, and the right subject matter.
Better yet, I was co-interviewed with Nik Sharma, who I write most of my marketing-focused articles with. We spoke about Naked Brands, influencer marketing and direct-to-consumer brands.
Luckily, the early reviews are encouraging.
You can listen to the podcast with Sara on Spotify or iTunes.
Thank you for reading!
David Perell