When I first crossed the rubicon from magazine writer to guy who runs Three Point Four Media, I found myself rolling my eyes in the back of my head every time I heard a new acronym. What our POV on this? always drove me nuts. But now that I’ve fully assimilated I actually think this is a helpful way to think about things! Let me give you my POV.
Client services is all about ensuring your client is happy with the work you have mutually agreed on. But it’s not entirely about appeasing them. Our clients hire us because they like us, our pitch, and our previous client work. They didn’t sign a contract for a group of yes men, they signed a contract for an editorial studio that helps brands—big and small—tell their stories. They hired us for our POV, even if they might not want to hear it at first.
Lately, when talking to new clients we’ve tweaked our approach slightly from why yes we can do all of that to here’s what we think you should do and how we’d do it. That’s our POV.
Onto the links.
An Article
There are so many passages I want to quote from this New York profile of NBA scoop merchant Shams Charania. I spend a lot of time texting people, checking my email mindlessly, and reading subreddits about college football and the Grateful Dead, but this dude is glued to his phone. Sounds stressful.
He averages 18 hours of screen time a day and was proud of how far that number had dipped on a recent vacation to Portugal with his family, even if he had continued tweeting minor news — “Skal Labissiere has agreed to a partially guaranteed one-year deal with the Sacramento Kings” — throughout the weeklong trip. “I prefer the poolside sit-and-do-nothing vacation, so I can still be on my phone as constant as I wanna be,” Charania said. “But did it get to, like, 14 hours? Yes. Did it get to, like, 12 or 13 hours some days? Yes. I think that’s a win.”
This is a very fun media story, even if you don’t care about the NBA.
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A Show
Great British Bake Off is back, which means I can now watch English people bake and yell at the TV like I’m watching a World Series game. Please tell me all of your petty grievances about the first two episodes—or past seasons—and why you think you’d succeed on the show.
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A Recipe
Speaking of baking, I made Alison Roman’s sticky apple cake. A very simple and straightforward recipe that was extremely delicious for days afterwards. (Friend of the newsletter Alex Beggs wrote the definitive piece on the virtues of cold cake.)
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Yet Another Media Subscription
That’s right: I subscribed to Sirius XM. I had been Sirius-curious for a couple years but never pulled the trigger. Let me tell you: it rules. And not just because it has a channel that plays Grateful Dead music 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There’s a ‘90s grunge station. Willie Nelson. Detroit Lions Broadcasts. 90s and early aughts hip-hop. What else could a middle aged guy want?
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A Run
It is my favorite time of year to run: shorts and long sleeve shirt weather. Went for a lovely seven-miler through the Gaylord and Traverse City State Forest this past Sunday. The map made it seem like there was a very minor stream crossing, but it ended up being a river with no stones or downed trees to cross so I had to double back and meander down another beautiful and desolate forest road. Worse problems to have on a sunny Sunday afternoon.