FIFA’s Revenue Revolution: When Football Became a Platform Business

I stayed up late last night reading through the notes from a fascinating podcast conversation about FIFA’s financial transformation, and I’m still thinking about it this morning. Not because of the numbers themselves, though a jump from $7 billion to $13 billion in one World Cup cycle is certainly eye-popping, but because of what those … Read more

Mind the Gaps: Why Differentiation Alone Isn’t Enough

For years, I’ve watched startups, telecom companies, SaaS providers, and platform businesses obsess over one thing: differentiation. The pitch usually goes something like this: “We’re faster.” “We’re cheaper.” “We have more features.” “We’re AI-powered.” That’s all well and good, but being different and being relevant are not the same thing. In my years helping companies … Read more

Sports Marketing in 2026: The End of “Sponsorships as Campaigns”

Sports Marketing used to be a clean loop: buy rights, build a campaign, measure impressions, renew. That loop is breaking. In 2026, the winning sports marketers are treating sports less like a media buy and more like infrastructure—a system where content, distribution, identity, and commerce run together. The shift isn’t subtle. It’s structural. Here are … Read more

Ever Have That Feeling Before? Well I Do

Reading Marketing Dive’s piece today on “How rising retail brands use influencers to combat digital overload” gave me that familiar “we’ve done this before” feeling. The article frames creator relationships as the adaptive layer brands need when platforms keep shifting formats, algorithms, and attention, and most of all, it points to growing consumer fatigue with … Read more

Why I Let AI Tell My Story (And Why You Should Too)

Here’s something that would have sounded like science fiction five years ago: I just had three AI tools—Claude, Perplexity, and Manus—build comprehensive biographical websites about my work and thinking. Not from scratch. Not from thin air. From five decades of actual data, scattered across the web and buried in my personal files. The result? Three … Read more

The Thought Processing Underground:

How Shadow, Cleft, TimeOs, and Grain Are Redefining Mental Real Estate While Hedy and Granola grab headlines with their meeting-focused wizardry, a different revolution is brewing in the shadows. The real game isn’t just about better meeting notes—it’s about capturing human intelligence the moment it sparks. Four platforms are pioneering distinct approaches to thought processing … Read more

The End of Fake Meeting Engagement:

How AI Thought Processing Is Transforming Business Communication Here’s the brutal truth: most executives have been faking their way through meetings for decades. Half-listening while frantically scribbling notes, missing critical insights while wrestling with whether that action item belongs to Marketing or Finance. The age of meeting theater is over. AI-powered thought processing tools like … Read more

The Dismissive Attitude: Why “That’s Just AI” Reveals More About the Speaker Than the User

When colleagues dismiss sophisticated AI implementations with phrases like “oh that’s just your AI,” they inadvertently expose their own technological illiteracy and psychological biases. This reductive commentary reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of modern AI capabilities and reveals deeper issues of workplace envy and resistance to innovation. The Knowledge Divide The “just AI” dismissal reveals a … Read more