It’s the summer solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere, which for me is late nights on the patio, listening to birdsong ludicrously early, and that lovely feeling when you go to put the bins out at bedtime and it’s still a teeny bit light in the northern sky. (Ten years ago it would have been ‘coming home from a night out and it’s already getting light’).
Audience Profiles and ready made personas
The Audience Spectrum is an amazing resource from the Audience Agency focused on the arts sector.
The tool is designed to help those crafting marketing strategies in the arts to profile and understand their current and potential audiences.
It’s free to access the segments and detailed persona documents. They even include suggestions for media to best reach the audience.
Make sure you check the team’s tips for getting the most from the toolkit too.
Slow down to go faster
I’ve already mentioned Cal Newport’s appearance on the Squiggly Careers podcast in a previous edition, and this week I binged the audiobook of Slow Productivity in a 24 hour period (ironically while blasting through about 4 different projects around the house, but it’s the intention that matters, right?)
I was taken by the practicality of the ideas in the book – like his suggestion to host ‘office hours’ where you make yourself hyper-available to your team, colleagues and peers, to answer those quick questions that usually rain in all day long through email, Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, etc.
It was a good reminder too, to reintroduce some of the good habits I built as an employee into freelance life – like meeting-free days, setting up a default rhythm for the week, and taking periodic afternoons off to go out and do something for yourself.
Artificial Ideas
We don’t write with AI here, humans rule.
But we have no issue using generative AI tools to knock ideas around, get silly, and push the limits of our thinking.
This article in Fast Company had some fun and surprising prompts to get your AI partner to behave like an eccentric colleague in the creative process.
If you haven’t had a play with AI yet, let this be your prompt. (Heh, see what I did there?)
Transform your newsletter into an interactive story where readers make choices that affect the outcome. Each edition could be a new chapter, with decisions impacting the next installment. This not only engages readers but also keeps them eagerly anticipating the next issue.
– ChatGPT’s answer when I used one of the prompts in the article to get outlandish ideas for this newsletter. Sounds fun… but a little impractical
Should you work for free?
This is an oldie but a goodie, I never get tired of chuckling at it… but it’s an important reminder for us all to value our time and our skills.
PSA: Exposure is never an acceptable means of payment… but you can probably do a freebie for your mum.
(Thanks to Lauren Currie for sharing this in the UPFRONT newsletter recently)
