Insurgent Thinking?

What Amazon's AWS leader suggests you always have to think and act like the insurgent to win business

šŸ‘‹ Hey, Must Readers! I trust you had a good week.

Iā€™m back with 11 must-read stories for you to read & an exclusive microblog about being the creator of a million dollar group.

ThisšŸ‘‡ made me LOL a little too hard this weekend.

As a reminder: Each week Must Reads shares stories you have unlikely read, seen in your feeds or on your messenger of choice. Hit share to help Must Reads grow and help to make people more informed and entertained.

Must Read Articles Of The Week

  1. 5 Smart Ways Businesses Rethought The Work Week šŸ’­ The 5 companies who rethought the workweek to improve performance. Hint the post-it note was created in 15% time - Read the full articleĀ 

  2. šŸ†“ New Leader Vision And Action TemplateĀ Templates and frameworks are always the most popular clicked stories. So picture this; you are in your new role in January and you are presented as the new leader, whatā€™s your next move? Here is a free framework and free template to drive your new (or old team) forward - Get the free template

  3. It Is Time To Rethink The Way You Are Spending Your Training Budgets šŸ’“ Stop attending the same old rubbish conferences and finishing another LinkedIn course, get yourself a coach or something more productive for you and your career - Read the full articleĀ 

  4. Mrs Claus Is Saving Christmas šŸ¤¶Ā Why Mrs Claus is in high demand and rightly becoming more popular.

  5. Does Every Brand Need NFTā€™s? šŸ–¼Ā Here is a great thread on why NFTā€™s should be considered by every brand - Read the threadĀ (FYI I donā€™t think it is going to be an every brand action but one many will try and just fail with)Ā Ā» Listen to The Future State of NFTā€™s podcast to understand the value & pitfalls of NFTā€™s.

  6. Mental Flexibility Is Key To Perform Well Under Pressure šŸ˜“Ā One of the most impressive traits former colleagues had was being able to perform under pressure, especially around hard deadlines and moving landscapes, this is a great long read on why talking tough doesnā€™t work but being mentally flexible will help - Read the full articleĀ 

  7. Ghosting šŸ‘»Ā A huge newer issue I wrote about earlier this year, is becoming the biggest business problem, yes, ghosting. The numbers have been collated and ghosting mentions on glassdoor has increased 450% in under 18 month period. This is a big issue you can & should tackle at your business - Read the full articleĀ 

  8. Spotify The Audio & Soon To Be Video Giant šŸš€ Last week I referenced how Patreon is going after YouTube, Spotify has their sights set on video, in this long read it breaks down why velocity is going to help Spotiy become a prime time player in video and a destination creators will crave to be on. - Read the full article Ā» Just remember as I said in the recent excel influencers microblog; Spotify has so much content, discovery becomes a real issue for creators and will be pay to play for most, if there is ever a time to build a discovery engine itā€™s now.Ā 

  9. Famous Families Feuds Explained šŸ‘ŸĀ Some know that the founders of Adidas & Puma were (the Dassler) brothers, they had a huge argument and then split, then Puma was born, here are two other family fueds explained - Read the full articleĀ 

  10. Drone Delivery Is Here? šŸ¤ØĀ I joke regularly about brands who leverage narrative to gain press attention, Amazon are the masters of this, however, Walmart have started to actually test delivery by drone, I am not sure it has huge potential but seems to be worth well while the delivery space starts to consolidate & all by road - Read the full article Ā Ā» Related read: Find out why you have to know what side of the consolidation you are on

  11. 1m Followers With Microsoft Tips šŸ¤©Ā TikTok is very popular on must reads, I have questioned whether the next move into influencers on TikTok is the internal influencer, this is a product manager from Microsoft sharing tips for office and recently hit 1m followers. Who knew training and hacks would skyrocket following on TikTok.

Something To Think About: AWS Leaders motto - ā€œAlways Think Act An Insurgentā€ā€¦Concentrate on Product & Customers and build whatā€™s most important for our customers you will lead internally and externally.

Microblog: Are You A Million Dollar Group Creator?

Are you in work-related groups? Not just the meme group or LOL group with friends from home or full of family members who argue about everything? Are you part of the professional movement towards chat-based groups that help recommend companies, agencies, vendors, quick solutions and then offer work and deals between each other?

There are invite-only groups on Slack, iMessage, WhatsApp, and more recently the rise of Discord servers.Are you part of the millions of dollars or pounds economy thatā€™s passing recommendations and word of mouth referrals? If not, consider how you could be a builder of it. How you could build a supportive community or leverage your expertise and monetise it.

The creator economy is thriving, there are thousands of professional groups that are charging for shared knowledge and expertise. Are you an asset that could create more passive income based on your knowledge and expertise? Donā€™t let your network and expertise be something that could bring in support, work and progression. ā€”My 3 tipsā€”Ā (1) šŸ‘®ā€ā™‚ļø Donā€™t create it on your primary messengers like iMessage or WhatsApp, you will need to mute and police this messenger. (2) šŸ‘Ž Facebook was an option but the default is often unruly comments and blind ignorance - itā€™s the wild west for groups & where they go to šŸŖ¦. (3) šŸš€If you want to lean into the future consider how you might use a platform like discord or Slack, remember urgent is only for the sender, never the receiver, so expectation management is essential.

Thanks for reading again today šŸ™

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Until next weekā€™s Must Reads, go well, friends.

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