Pick battles you can win
A parable about names
Back in the day, I worked at mediabistro.com. That’s mediabistro.com, not mediabistro or Mediabistro or MediaBistro or Media Bistro or any other permutation. Laurel, the founder, always insisted that was how it should be written. She understood brand (see: boas). A name, after all, is an important thing to get right.
As a low level editorial staffer, I spent a lot of time emailing with people. They would, inevitably, misspell (miswrite?) mediabistro.com. In the beginning, I would try to correct them gently . Just FYI, it’s mediabistro.com, he writes back over and over again. Then they’d make the same mistake in subsequent emails. I didn’t give up, but I stopped trying quite so hard to change habits, and simply committed myself to always writing mediabistro.com. (Even 20 years on, it’s hard for me to write or say the name any other way.)
At Three Point Four Media, we occasionally run into a similar conundrum. People frequently write 3.4 instead of writing the name out in letters. We tried to fight this and get people to use Three Point Four Media or at least Three Point Four. But we’ve come to realize that’s a losing battle. Also: one that we don’t need to win. On some level, it’s just nice that people are talking about us.
That said, for shorthand we like TPF.
An article
Gareth Gore’s tale is wild. It sounds like a James Bond movie combined with a Dan Brown novel, except it’s real. (Yes, I know James Bond movies are originally James Bond books.)
Here’s a sentence: “It was Opus Dei one hundred percent. It ended up taking the place of The Syndicate — which wasn’t really a syndicate.”
Here’s another (very long) sentence: “This is the previously untold story of how these men hijacked Banco Popular and transformed it into a cash machine for Opus Dei, the controversial religious sect they belonged to — transforming this tiny, secretive religious movement into one of the most powerful forces in the Catholic Church, bankrolling the creation of a vast recruitment network targeting children and vulnerable teenagers, and creating a beachhead in the world of U.S. politics that would make Opus Dei a secret but critical force behind the recent erosion of reproductive rights and other civil liberties.”
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A movie
I very much enjoy the 28 Days/Weeks/Years franchise. I watched the newest one on my iPad while Pelotoning—Cody would struggle in a zombie apocalypse—hardly an ideal way to view anything, and yet, it’s one of the most visually stunning movies I’ve seen in years. Danny Boyle, man. I wish I had seen it on a big screen. I would also like to watch all three of the films back-to-back-to-back, a thing that’s surely doable with a nine-month old.
The third act really falls apart, specifically the last 20 minutes or so. Rather than resolving the arc, they set up a subsequent film. Which makes sense, given this week’s release of the trailer for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Maybe this will be good. Maybe it will set up a fifth movie.
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A show
While Pluribus is missing a key element of the best Apple TV shows (middle-aged man having a great time acting in a completely different show, perfected by Billy Crudup in season three of The Morning Show), it does have other important elements: looks like it cost billions; confusing, spiraling plot; funnier than it should be, sometimes intentionally; random elements of other shows smashed into a Frankenstein monster viewing experience; push alert to my phone for new episodes.
Vince Gilligan is clearly using all the locations he scouted but didn’t shoot for Breaking Bad. Rhea Seehorn is incredible. A must-watch.
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A project
Another week, another small but mighty last-minute project came through. We activated the team and got cranking. Forty-eight hours later, done and dusted and off to the client. They are happy. We are happy. The check arrives in 28 days.
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A run
The Pawtucket Turkey Trot had a new course this year, ending inside the RIFC soccer stadium. Did this ridiculous route require two 180- and three 90-degree turns in the final quarter mile? Sure did. Did leaving the race require crossing a stream of tired runners who only had 100 yards to go? Also yes. Do I have some thoughts and edits for next year? Third time is the charm.
The goal was sub-18. I went 18:03, which we’ll count as a victory given the 1530 degrees of turning and the 17:50 Grade Adjusted Pace. (Yes, we are grasping at straws here.) Our team finished 6th out of 200, a result worth celebrating even if we were a shocking 12 minutes behind first place and eight off the podium. A fun race, despite the complaining.
Was the Turkey Trot route any sillier than this thing I ran totally of my own volition? No, no it was not. This is much dumber.
Next week, a Q&A. It should have been this week, but things happen.
“If you’re a $5 billion company and you’ve been searching for a person for a year, what’s three more months?”
Making the wrong hire costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours. If you’re looking for a c-suite creative or a senior-level design director, there’s a guy for that: Michael Ardelean. But Ardelean isn’t like other headhunters. He doesn’t spam potential candidates with LinkedIn messages. He’s calm, elegant, strategic, and came to the recr…