Latest / Career Relaunch® / Sharing Your Stories with Scott Lamb- CR111

Transcript

Sharing Your Stories with Scott Lamb- CR111 · Career Relaunch®

• 0:00
  Scott: Scott: I think there's something really inherent
• 0:03
  Scott: about the act of writing.
• 0:05
  Scott: It does sharpen your thinking.
• 0:06
  Scott: Writing is not just an output,
• 0:08
  Scott: it's a process.
• 0:10
  Scott: So even if you hadn't published anything,
• 0:12
  Scott: you're already a little bit further ahead
• 0:14
  Scott: than you were before you wrote anything.
• 0:16
  Joseph: Joseph: Welcome to the Career Relaunch® podcast
• 0:18
  Joseph: focused on helping you reinvent your career.
• 0:20
  Joseph: My name is Joseph Liu,
• 0:21
  Joseph: and I'm here to help you gain the clarity,
• 0:23
  Joseph: confidence, and courage to overcome the
• 0:24
  Joseph: challenges of making changes to your career
• 0:27
  Joseph: so you can do more meaningful work and enjoy
• 0:29
  Joseph: your professional life.
• 0:30
  Joseph: In each episode, I feature people who have
• 0:32
  Joseph: stepped off the beaten path to reinvent their
• 0:34
  Joseph: careers. We talk through their unique
• 0:36
  Joseph: personal journeys, the challenges they
• 0:37
  Joseph: overcame, and the lessons they learned along
• 0:39
  Joseph: the way. To help you understand what it takes
• 0:41
  Joseph: to relaunch your career.
• 0:44
  Joseph: Today, my guest will share his story of
• 0:46
  Joseph: pivoting through various journalism roles to
• 0:48
  Joseph: eventually become Vice President of content
• 0:50
  Joseph: at one of the world's most popular online
• 0:52
  Joseph: publishing platforms.
• 0:54
  Joseph: We'll discuss how writing is a professional
• 0:56
  Joseph: advantage most people underutilize,
• 0:58
  Joseph: and how capturing your thoughts can help you
• 0:59
  Joseph: clarify your own voice and values.
• 1:02
  Joseph: Afterwards, during today's Mental Fuel®, I'll
• 1:04
  Joseph: share my own journey of writing, which has
• 1:06
  Joseph: been full of its own ups and downs.
• 1:11
  Joseph: I want you to think for a moment about all
• 1:13
  Joseph: the writing you've done in the last week.
• 1:16
  Joseph: Now, if you're like me,
• 1:18
  Joseph: most of your writing probably involves stuff
• 1:20
  Joseph: you have to do, not writing you choose to do.
• 1:23
  Joseph: I'm guessing you've probably written some
• 1:26
  Joseph: work emails, project status updates,
• 1:28
  Joseph: a few meeting notes, Slack messages,
• 1:31
  Joseph: a to do list, or maybe a couple of comments
• 1:34
  Joseph: on a LinkedIn post here and there.
• 1:36
  Joseph: And if you think about your personal writing,
• 1:38
  Joseph: when's the last time you wrote a personal
• 1:40
  Joseph: email to a friend just to check in?
• 1:42
  Joseph: When was the last time you sent a handwritten
• 1:44
  Joseph: letter or card in the mail to a loved one?
• 1:48
  Joseph: When was the last time you wrote in your
• 1:49
  Joseph: journal? If you still have one.
• 1:53
  Joseph: If you're like most busy professionals and
• 1:55
  Joseph: clients, I know, most of your writing these
• 1:57
  Joseph: days is quick, rushed,
• 1:59
  Joseph: reactive, transactional,
• 2:01
  Joseph: and maybe even a bit of a chore.
• 2:04
  Joseph: We actually spend a lot of our lives writing,
• 2:06
  Joseph: but almost none of it is done in a way that
• 2:09
  Joseph: helps us understand ourselves or make sense
• 2:12
  Joseph: of our own career journey.
• 2:14
  Joseph: Today, I'm speaking with Scott Lamb,
• 2:16
  Joseph: who didn't actually set out to work in media
• 2:18
  Joseph: in college. He took a lot of German classes
• 2:20
  Joseph: and studied philosophy.
• 2:22
  Joseph: Falling in love with the ideas people held in
• 2:25
  Joseph: their minds. He was originally planning to do
• 2:27
  Joseph: a PhD in philosophy before journalism pulled
• 2:30
  Joseph: him off course. What followed was a
• 2:32
  Joseph: journalistic and media career that took him
• 2:34
  Joseph: from salon to BuzzFeed,
• 2:36
  Joseph: where he led their international expansion
• 2:39
  Joseph: and eventually to Medium,
• 2:40
  Joseph: where he served as the VP of publisher Growth
• 2:43
  Joseph: and Strategy and is now the VP of content.
• 2:46
  Joseph: Navigating the advent of the AI era and its
• 2:48
  Joseph: impact on the craft of writing right now,
• 2:50
  Joseph: for better or for worse.
• 2:52
  Joseph: Along the way, he's spent a lot of time still
• 2:54
  Joseph: exploring ideas, but now,
• 2:56
  Joseph: in the context of writing,
• 2:57
  Joseph: like why some writing seems to appeal to an
• 3:00
  Joseph: audience while some just doesn't.
• 3:02
  Joseph: You can find more of his thinking@scott.blog.
• 3:06
  Joseph: Now, as someone myself who never really
• 3:09
  Joseph: considered myself to be a good writer growing
• 3:11
  Joseph: up, but now spends a good chunk of my time
• 3:13
  Joseph: these days contributing articles and written
• 3:16
  Joseph: input to various publications,
• 3:17
  Joseph: writing my own posts on Medium and my own
• 3:19
  Joseph: blog, and attempting to write a nonfiction
• 3:22
  Joseph: book on personal branding.
• 3:24
  Joseph: Right now. I was really interested to hear
• 3:27
  Joseph: Scott's perspectives on the landscape of
• 3:29
  Joseph: writing these days, especially as AI starts
• 3:31
  Joseph: to play a larger role in content creation.
• 3:34
  Joseph: By the end of our conversation,
• 3:35
  Joseph: I hope you're going to gain a better
• 3:37
  Joseph: understanding of how you can articulate your
• 3:39
  Joseph: ideas through writing,
• 3:40
  Joseph: exercise your writing muscle,
• 3:42
  Joseph: and potentially open up some surprising doors
• 3:45
  Joseph: with your writing, both personally and
• 3:46
  Joseph: professionally. You can get all the show
• 3:48
  Joseph: notes from today's conversation at
• 3:50
  Joseph: careerrelaunch.net/111.
• 3:53
  Joseph: Scott spoke with me from Brooklyn,
• 3:55
  Joseph: New York. Alright Scott.
• 3:59
  Joseph: Well, welcome to career relaunch,
• 4:01
  Joseph: and thank you so much for taking time out of
• 4:03
  Joseph: your busy day to come onto the show.
• 4:05
  Scott: Scott: My pleasure. Really excited to talk.
• 4:08
  Joseph: Joseph: Well, I would love to start by just hearing
• 4:11
  Joseph: from you about what has been occupying your
• 4:14
  Joseph: time in both your personal and also your
• 4:16
  Joseph: professional life recently.
• 4:19
  Scott: Scott: It's funny because it's the same thing.
• 4:21
  Scott: It's AI. I feel like every single
• 4:23
  Scott: conversation I have somehow at some point
• 4:26
  Scott: comes around to talking about AI.
• 4:28
  Scott: We were on vacation recently with the family,
• 4:31
  Scott: and at some point my older daughter was like,
• 4:33
  Scott: please, dad, can we stop talking about AI?
• 4:36
  Joseph: Joseph: How old is your daughter? How old is your
• 4:38
  Joseph: older daughter?
• 4:38
  Scott: Scott: She's ten. She's ten.
• 4:40
  Scott: So like we're getting together as a group,
• 4:42
  Scott: it just kind of inevitably we were starting
• 4:44
  Scott: to talk about AI again.
• 4:45
  Scott: And she was just like, I just don't want to
• 4:47
  Scott: hear about it anymore. It's so boring to me.
• 4:48
  Joseph: Joseph: So it does seem to be.
• 4:50
  Scott: Scott: The.
• 4:51
  Joseph: Joseph: Topic. Yeah. Everywhere in everything,
• 4:54
  Joseph: and it must be touching a lot of your work
• 4:57
  Joseph: also. I would love to hear a little bit,
• 4:59
  Joseph: just very briefly, because I want to get into
• 5:00
  Joseph: more detail on this later, but could you give
• 5:02
  Joseph: me just a snapshot of what you do
• 5:03
  Joseph: professionally?
• 5:05
  Scott: Scott: I mean, I work with words on the internet.
• 5:07
  Scott: That's kind of the core piece of what I do
• 5:09
  Scott: working at a platform like Medium.
• 5:11
  Scott: We're really about trying to unlock people
• 5:14
  Scott: writing and sharing their writing.
• 5:16
  Scott: And AI tools are obviously like changing the
• 5:19
  Scott: landscape around that kind of work really
• 5:21
  Scott: quickly and dramatically, like both for good
• 5:23
  Scott: and bad. There's like a lot of possibility
• 5:25
  Scott: and excitement. There's also a lot of slop.
• 5:28
  Scott: So we're dealing with both at Medium.
• 5:30
  Joseph: Joseph: Now, for those who are listening to this and
• 5:32
  Joseph: maybe they're not familiar with the platform.
• 5:35
  Joseph: So Medium is one of the world's most highly
• 5:38
  Joseph: visited sites in the world.
• 5:39
  Joseph: I just looked it up this morning on
• 5:41
  Joseph: SimilarWeb, and it's within the top 600 most
• 5:43
  Joseph: visited sites globally,
• 5:44
  Joseph: the top 500 in the US.
• 5:46
  Joseph: It's been higher in the past also.
• 5:49
  Joseph: Could you just share a quick overview of the
• 5:51
  Joseph: platform and maybe how it compares to other
• 5:55
  Joseph: publishing platforms that exist out there
• 5:56
  Joseph: like LinkedIn publishing,
• 5:58
  Joseph: Substack, maybe even somebody's own blog
• 6:01
  Joseph: Medium.
• 6:02
  Scott: Scott: We think of ourselves as a reading and
• 6:05
  Scott: writing company, so as a platform,
• 6:07
  Scott: we're a place where readers and writers come
• 6:10
  Scott: together. We really want to connect people
• 6:11
  Scott: who are curious about the world and have
• 6:13
  Scott: questions, want to learn something,
• 6:15
  Scott: deepen their understanding with writing that
• 6:17
  Scott: will help them do that,
• 6:19
  Scott: and to enable people who have expertise or
• 6:22
  Scott: experience that's valuable for other people
• 6:24
  Scott: to learn about, to be able to write about it
• 6:26
  Scott: and share. I think the thing that sets Medium
• 6:30
  Scott: apart from most of those other places is
• 6:33
  Scott: really, ideally, we're for people who have
• 6:36
  Scott: things to say. They're not trying to launch a
• 6:38
  Scott: small business around their media empire.
• 6:41
  Scott: They're maybe not even really think of
• 6:43
  Scott: themselves primarily as writers, but write
• 6:45
  Scott: alongside other things they do.
• 6:46
  Scott: They're experts in their field, and they want
• 6:48
  Scott: to share their knowledge They are building a
• 6:50
  Scott: professional profile in some way,
• 6:52
  Scott: and I think the real advantage Medium has.
• 6:53
  Scott: You know, it's a clean,
• 6:56
  Scott: well-lit space to write on the internet,
• 6:58
  Scott: so there are no ads interfering with the user
• 7:00
  Scott: experience. We're very focused on the user
• 7:02
  Scott: experience for both readers and writers,
• 7:05
  Scott: but I think the thing that we provide for
• 7:06
  Scott: writers that's unique is an audience.
• 7:09
  Scott: You don't have to have a mailing list or a
• 7:12
  Scott: social media presence to come onto Medium and
• 7:15
  Scott: to write something that people are going to
• 7:16
  Scott: see. We have a big website in terms of
• 7:19
  Scott: visitor traffic, so we have a large and
• 7:21
  Scott: really curious community of readers,
• 7:23
  Scott: and our job is to connect them with things
• 7:26
  Scott: that they're interested in. In reading about
• 7:28
  Scott: the opportunity for writers is to come on and
• 7:31
  Scott: get distribution, get an audience, which from
• 7:33
  Scott: my many years over the over the decades in
• 7:37
  Scott: the media industry, you know,
• 7:39
  Scott: distribution is the hardest challenge.
• 7:40
  Scott: And that's the thing that we try and solve
• 7:42
  Scott: for people.
• 7:43
  Joseph: Joseph: I've actually been a very loyal follower of
• 7:45
  Joseph: Medium since 2014, during the very earliest
• 7:48
  Joseph: days of Medium and thinking,
• 7:50
  Joseph: wow, this is a really unique, promising
• 7:51
  Joseph: platform. And I remember seeing Lori Siegel,
• 7:54
  Joseph: a reporter on CNN, doing a feature on Medium
• 7:57
  Joseph: in 2016, interviewing one of the founders of
• 8:00
  Joseph: Williams. And he was talking about Medium.
• 8:02
  Joseph: And I just thought at the time, this is such
• 8:03
  Joseph: an interesting place for people to spend
• 8:05
  Joseph: their time. And as you mentioned, it's like a
• 8:07
  Joseph: really clean, really pleasurable place to
• 8:09
  Joseph: write. And you don't have to think about like
• 8:12
  Joseph: font or formatting or how to create a
• 8:14
  Joseph: WordPress blog. It's just ready to go out of
• 8:16
  Joseph: the box. So I do want to get into the ins and
• 8:19
  Joseph: outs of Medium and get your thoughts on the
• 8:20
  Joseph: current state of self published articles and
• 8:22
  Joseph: blog posts. In a world of increasingly
• 8:24
  Joseph: driven, AI generated or assisted content.
• 8:27
  Joseph: But before we do that,
• 8:29
  Joseph: this is a career show.
• 8:31
  Joseph: So I'd love to hear a little bit more about
• 8:33
  Joseph: you because this show is about career change.
• 8:35
  Joseph: Now, you haven't always been the VP of
• 8:36
  Joseph: content for Medium. Your initial plan wasn't
• 8:39
  Joseph: to actually go into journalism or online
• 8:42
  Joseph: content when we last spoke.
• 8:43
  Joseph: So I'd love to go back in time here and just
• 8:46
  Joseph: go back to the beginning and thinking back to
• 8:48
  Joseph: your childhood. First of all,
• 8:51
  Joseph: where did you grow up and what do you
• 8:53
  Joseph: remember being some of your favorite things
• 8:56
  Joseph: to do growing up as a kid?
• 8:59
  Scott: Scott: I had a lucky sort of combination of things
• 9:01
  Scott: in my childhood. I was born and lived most of
• 9:04
  Scott: my time as a kid in Boulder,
• 9:06
  Scott: Colorado, which is an amazing place to grow
• 9:08
  Scott: up. We lived kind of on the edge of the city,
• 9:10
  Scott: so the mountains and there's an extensive
• 9:13
  Scott: trail system that sort of rings boulder.
• 9:17
  Scott: So I'd spent a lot of time in the woods
• 9:18
  Scott: exploring, walking, you know,
• 9:20
  Scott: playing games with my friends there. When I
• 9:22
  Scott: was eight years old, my dad,
• 9:24
  Scott: who worked for IBM, got a job that took us as
• 9:27
  Scott: a family to Tokyo.
• 9:29
  Scott: And it's kind of hard to draw two places that
• 9:32
  Scott: are more distinctly different than Boulder
• 9:34
  Scott: and Tokyo. Like, you know, very outdoorsy,
• 9:37
  Scott: not urban at all to one of the biggest
• 9:39
  Scott: metropolises in the world.
• 9:41
  Scott: But a thing that they did have in common is
• 9:45
  Scott: this like ability to go and explore?
• 9:47
  Scott: When we moved, I remember my parents for some
• 9:49
  Scott: reason were very like direct with us about
• 9:51
  Scott: this, that the crime rate in Tokyo was lower
• 9:54
  Scott: than the crime rate in Boulder,
• 9:56
  Scott: Colorado. And like Boulder, Colorado did not
• 9:58
  Scott: have a high crime rate.
• 9:59
  Joseph: Joseph: It's a pretty I don't think of it as a
• 10:00
  Joseph: dangerous place.
• 10:01
  Scott: Scott: College town? No, no.
• 10:03
  Scott: But somehow Tokyo was still even safer and
• 10:07
  Scott: has an amazing public transportation network.
• 10:09
  Scott: So I had the ability as like a ten year old
• 10:12
  Scott: to, you know, get on the train and go and
• 10:13
  Scott: explore on my own in Tokyo.
• 10:15
  Scott: And that, I think cemented a lifelong love.
• 10:18
  Scott: I think hiking, walking and exploring cities
• 10:21
  Scott: is one of my favorite things to do.
• 10:23
  Scott: Also, living in Japan at that age obviously
• 10:25
  Scott: got very into Transformers,
• 10:27
  Scott: which I think had not yet come to the United
• 10:29
  Scott: States like they were, you know, as a
• 10:31
  Scott: Japanese show to begin with.
• 10:33
  Scott: And kind of all of the anime and manga like
• 10:36
  Scott: that, cartoons, Japanese cartoons and anime
• 10:39
  Scott: were like a real fascination for me growing
• 10:41
  Scott: up. It was an amazing experience to have as a
• 10:43
  Scott: kid.
• 10:49
  Joseph: Joseph: How did you then go from that life of.
• 10:52
  Joseph: I guess it's kind of a lot of contrast here
• 10:54
  Joseph: between Boulder, Colorado,
• 10:56
  Joseph: Tokyo to eventually deciding what you want to
• 10:58
  Joseph: study in college.
• 11:01
  Joseph: You mentioned last time you were originally
• 11:02
  Joseph: planning to do a PhD in philosophy.
• 11:04
  Joseph: So I guess I'm curious,
• 11:06
  Joseph: why did you want to do that?
• 11:07
  Joseph: And then why did you not ultimately end up
• 11:10
  Joseph: doing that?
• 11:11
  Scott: Scott: I took a year off between high school and
• 11:12
  Scott: college and lived abroad in Austria,
• 11:16
  Scott: and that came together in kind of an odd way.
• 11:18
  Scott: I had applied to do an exchange program with
• 11:22
  Scott: the Rotary Club, and they have this like very
• 11:25
  Scott: big global international exchange program.
• 11:28
  Scott: And I'd been hoping to go to Italy,
• 11:30
  Scott: and that fell through at the last minute. And
• 11:31
  Scott: they gave me a list of countries that I could
• 11:33
  Scott: choose to go to. I really wanted to go to
• 11:35
  Scott: India. My parents were pretty set against
• 11:37
  Scott: that as a 17 year old.
• 11:39
  Scott: So I chose Austria thinking I would be able
• 11:41
  Scott: to do a lot of snowboarding,
• 11:43
  Scott: and I ended up in the 10% of Austria.
• 11:45
  Scott: That's totally flat wine country on the
• 11:48
  Scott: eastern side of the country.
• 11:49
  Scott: It turned out to be lovely. But you know, my
• 11:51
  Scott: expectations met a very different reality.
• 11:54
  Scott: Anyway, I learned German while I was there,
• 11:56
  Scott: and when I got to college,
• 11:57
  Scott: I took a lot of German courses and started
• 11:59
  Scott: studying philosophy, kind of through my
• 12:02
  Scott: German ability, and just really fell in love
• 12:04
  Scott: with it. It's, I think philosophy had been on
• 12:07
  Scott: my mind for a while, as I remember as a kid
• 12:10
  Scott: seeing a cartoon where,
• 12:14
  Scott: you know, there's sort of three people
• 12:15
  Scott: sitting, I think they're in the countryside
• 12:17
  Scott: somewhere, and there are some sheep there.
• 12:20
  Scott: And you see the thought bubbles of all three
• 12:22
  Scott: of them. And two of the guys are thinking
• 12:25
  Scott: about the sheep. And the third guy is
• 12:26
  Scott: wondering what the other two are thinking.
• 12:28
  Scott: And it was like, this is what a philosopher
• 12:29
  Scott: does. And I just found that idea of like,
• 12:32
  Scott: oh, you can be the person who's wondering
• 12:33
  Scott: about what thoughts are going on inside of
• 12:35
  Scott: other people's heads. So I'd have this love
• 12:38
  Scott: of the idea of philosophy and then getting
• 12:41
  Scott: into college and actually understanding it
• 12:43
  Scott: was I just really loved wrestling with those
• 12:46
  Scott: ideas. I was a big fan of the Austrian German
• 12:50
  Scott: philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein,
• 12:52
  Scott: and got to read a lot of his work in the
• 12:55
  Scott: original, which was like probably the most
• 12:56
  Scott: difficult intellectual task I've ever done.
• 12:59
  Scott: But I was really, you know, at that point,
• 13:01
  Scott: somewhat plugged into what was happening in
• 13:04
  Scott: contemporary philosophy and looking at a
• 13:06
  Scott: couple of programs in the United States. So I
• 13:08
  Scott: had a little bit of time off between
• 13:11
  Scott: graduating from college and deciding what the
• 13:13
  Scott: next thing was, and had really been deep in
• 13:17
  Scott: looking at a couple of different philosophy
• 13:19
  Scott: programs. And then a friend of mine mentioned
• 13:22
  Scott: this program that she thought I might find
• 13:23
  Scott: interesting at NYU. That was a cultural
• 13:26
  Scott: reporting and criticism program,
• 13:28
  Scott: and I'd been doing in the interim some
• 13:30
  Scott: freelancing for local alt weekly newspapers.
• 13:34
  Scott: So I've been doing a little bit of writing, a
• 13:35
  Scott: little bit of journalism. And I thought, oh,
• 13:37
  Scott: this sounds like a very intellectually
• 13:39
  Scott: rigorous journalism program.
• 13:41
  Scott: Maybe this is kind of a nice mix of the
• 13:44
  Scott: things that seem to be interesting to me
• 13:45
  Scott: right now. So I applied there and got in,
• 13:49
  Scott: and it seemed like a better,
• 13:51
  Scott: much cheaper graduate program than going and
• 13:55
  Scott: shorter than going and doing a doctorate in
• 13:58
  Scott: philosophy. And I think at the time, I
• 13:59
  Scott: thought, maybe I'll come back to the
• 14:01
  Scott: philosophy thing a little bit. Let me try my
• 14:02
  Scott: hand at this, move out to New York City and
• 14:05
  Scott: kind of see how this goes.
• 14:07
  Scott: But very quickly, I was pretty sold on the
• 14:09
  Scott: idea of then getting into media.
• 14:12
  Joseph: Joseph: You graduate in 2003.
• 14:15
  Joseph: If I got my timeline correct here from NYU's
• 14:17
  Joseph: Cultural Reporting and Criticism program,
• 14:19
  Joseph: and then you pretty quickly got involved in
• 14:23
  Joseph: writing professionally,
• 14:24
  Joseph: and you wrote for salon for LA weekly and
• 14:27
  Joseph: others. Can you just share with me this
• 14:30
  Joseph: chapter of your career?
• 14:31
  Joseph: And then I'd be especially interested to hear
• 14:34
  Joseph: how you found it working in the industry at
• 14:36
  Joseph: the time. And when I say at the time, we're
• 14:37
  Joseph: talking about the early to mid 2000.
• 14:41
  Joseph: And just imagining the content landscape was
• 14:44
  Joseph: just so different at the time. This was pre
• 14:46
  Joseph: iPhone when you started.
• 14:47
  Scott: Scott: So my sort of road into writing at salon was
• 14:51
  Scott: a professor of mine at NYU.
• 14:53
  Scott: So I mostly tell people who are thinking
• 14:56
  Scott: about journalism school not to do it.
• 14:58
  Scott: I think the vast majority of people who I
• 15:01
  Scott: graduated with in that class have gone on to
• 15:04
  Scott: the legal profession they're doing.
• 15:06
  Scott: They're now therapists, like they've done
• 15:07
  Scott: very, very different things. But I feel like
• 15:09
  Scott: I got pretty lucky. And I had a professor
• 15:11
  Scott: that I really had a connection with, and he
• 15:12
  Scott: helped me get a job at salon.
• 15:15
  Scott: But even at that stage.
• 15:16
  Scott: So 2003, the internet was like this new,
• 15:20
  Scott: slightly scary thing.
• 15:22
  Scott: One of my professors really was like against
• 15:25
  Scott: me going and working at salon. She's like,
• 15:26
  Scott: you know, that thing's going to fall apart
• 15:27
  Scott: immediately. You need to try and find a job
• 15:29
  Scott: at a magazine. But the irony was this was
• 15:32
  Scott: also the last gasp of the magazine industry
• 15:36
  Scott: in New York City. So I did an internship at
• 15:38
  Scott: details magazine.
• 15:40
  Scott: You know, that magazine then was like
• 15:42
  Scott: constantly going through a state of change
• 15:44
  Scott: and downsizing a bunch of the big titles that
• 15:47
  Scott: were places that I think a lot of us hoped to
• 15:49
  Scott: work at just don't exist anymore.
• 15:51
  Scott: And it was like within five years after we
• 15:53
  Scott: graduated, a lot of them had shuttered.
• 15:55
  Scott: So, you know, I think I was looked at a
• 15:58
  Scott: little bit, not as a black sheep,
• 16:00
  Scott: but I think from my graduating class,
• 16:01
  Scott: I was probably the only one who went and
• 16:03
  Scott: worked for an online outlet.
• 16:05
  Scott: And it felt like, you know,
• 16:06
  Scott: I was happy to have a job, but it sort of
• 16:08
  Scott: felt like maybe this is a slightly
• 16:09
  Scott: speculative move.
• 16:11
  Joseph: Joseph: We're all so used to online content now,
• 16:13
  Joseph: but if I remember correctly.
• 16:15
  Joseph: So I went to northwestern and they've got a
• 16:16
  Joseph: big school of journalism. So some of my
• 16:18
  Joseph: friends went into journalism.
• 16:19
  Joseph: And I remember in the 2004 U.S.
• 16:22
  Joseph: elections, that was actually one of the first
• 16:24
  Joseph: times when the term blogger existed and
• 16:27
  Joseph: people were blogging actual news content.
• 16:30
  Joseph: This was a very, very unknown concept at the
• 16:33
  Joseph: time.
• 16:34
  Scott: Scott: That was the year. So I think at the
• 16:36
  Scott: Huffington Post had just recently launched
• 16:38
  Scott: Huffington Post. Huffington post played this
• 16:40
  Scott: huge role, and I remember I was living in
• 16:42
  Scott: Berlin at the time. I did a fellowship after
• 16:45
  Scott: graduating, and that took me to Germany for a
• 16:46
  Scott: year. And I remember writing about the
• 16:49
  Scott: election a little bit for a German outlet
• 16:50
  Scott: there, but I remember the Huffington Post
• 16:52
  Scott: launching and everyone being like this
• 16:55
  Scott: blogging thing is now like becoming media.
• 16:57
  Scott: What is that going to look like?
• 16:59
  Scott: It was very you know, I think there was a lot
• 17:00
  Scott: of disdain from more established journalism
• 17:05
  Scott: circles about, you know, what Huffington Post
• 17:06
  Scott: was trying to do. But it was clear that
• 17:08
  Scott: things were changing pretty quickly at that
• 17:10
  Scott: point.
• 17:11
  Joseph: Joseph: Now, you would eventually go to work at
• 17:13
  Joseph: BuzzFeed, which has gone through its own
• 17:16
  Joseph: evolution over the years.
• 17:17
  Joseph: Can you just tell me a little bit about your
• 17:20
  Joseph: time there? I think you started as a senior
• 17:21
  Joseph: editor there and then went all the way to
• 17:24
  Joseph: becoming an editorial director,
• 17:26
  Joseph: and then after that, I'd love to spend a
• 17:27
  Joseph: little bit of time talking about Medium.
• 17:29
  Scott: Scott: I came back from Germany.
• 17:32
  Scott: Was working at salon.
• 17:33
  Scott: Really enjoying it, doing sort of arts and
• 17:36
  Scott: music coverage from them.
• 17:38
  Scott: And then I saw a little bit of news about
• 17:41
  Scott: Jonah Peretti, sort of follow up to the
• 17:42
  Scott: Huffington Post, and he'd been on my radar.
• 17:44
  Scott: I knew him a little socially,
• 17:46
  Scott: like I think we had maybe met at some point
• 17:48
  Scott: at a party or something like that in New
• 17:49
  Scott: York. We had a friend in common, but I was
• 17:51
  Scott: like, oh, this is really cool.
• 17:53
  Scott: And I saw a lot of overlap with the stuff
• 17:55
  Scott: that I was very interested in at that point,
• 17:56
  Scott: which was trying to understand what was
• 17:59
  Scott: taking off online.
• 18:00
  Scott: So, you know, this was now 2006,
• 18:04
  Scott: 2007. The internet had evolved quite a lot in
• 18:08
  Scott: those four years since I graduated from NYU.
• 18:11
  Scott: And it was really clear that if you knew
• 18:14
  Scott: where to look, you could get an early
• 18:16
  Scott: indication of kind of what was about to take
• 18:19
  Scott: off. You could kind of get a sense for the
• 18:21
  Scott: momentum of things in culture,
• 18:23
  Scott: if that makes sense. And I thought that was a
• 18:25
  Scott: really cool, interesting idea.
• 18:26
  Scott: You know, Google search,
• 18:28
  Scott: I think had just recently released some of
• 18:30
  Scott: their trends information.
• 18:32
  Scott: And you could kind of be like,
• 18:33
  Scott: oh, this particular story is taking off in a
• 18:35
  Scott: way that you could then write about it and
• 18:37
  Scott: sort of encapsulate it.
• 18:38
  Scott: And that's really what early BuzzFeed was. So
• 18:40
  Scott: I like reached out to Jonah.
• 18:41
  Scott: I was like, this seems like really cool.
• 18:43
  Scott: And he, in a very startup way,
• 18:45
  Scott: just immediately offered me a job and was
• 18:47
  Scott: like, you should come work here, leave salon
• 18:48
  Scott: and come do this. And so it felt a little bit
• 18:51
  Scott: like another leap of faith,
• 18:53
  Scott: very similar to when I had first joined
• 18:55
  Scott: salon, because I was really leaving
• 18:57
  Scott: journalism behind.
• 18:58
  Scott: I don't think there was a good word for what
• 18:59
  Scott: it was that BuzzFeed was doing at that point.
• 19:02
  Scott: The company was five people pre,
• 19:04
  Scott: I think all angel funding at this point,
• 19:06
  Scott: like very speculative,
• 19:07
  Scott: but very, very cool.
• 19:12
  Joseph: Joseph: I know you just kind of mentioned just kind
• 19:13
  Joseph: of left journalism behind, but at this point,
• 19:14
  Joseph: you spent years in that industry.
• 19:17
  Joseph: Like, did you find it difficult to leave
• 19:20
  Joseph: behind a career you'd invested into,
• 19:22
  Joseph: or was it did you see it as kind of a natural
• 19:24
  Joseph: evolution? And the reason why I ask is I
• 19:26
  Joseph: often talk to people who are on a reasonably
• 19:28
  Joseph: good career path, and then something a little
• 19:31
  Joseph: more sparkly shows up and like,
• 19:33
  Joseph: how do you know whether that sparkly thing is
• 19:35
  Joseph: the thing you should go after?
• 19:37
  Joseph: Or if it's just a blip?
• 19:38
  Joseph: Like, how did you think through that?
• 19:40
  Scott: Scott: Definitely part of that.
• 19:42
  Scott: I mean, I was relatively I was still early
• 19:44
  Scott: ish in my career, but I'd put in time for
• 19:45
  Scott: sure. And there was a path,
• 19:47
  Scott: I think if I had stayed at salon, I could
• 19:48
  Scott: have, you know, I saw where I could have gone
• 19:50
  Scott: there and then to other places that were more
• 19:52
  Scott: similar to it. But I think also at that
• 19:54
  Scott: stage, it was very clear that the media
• 19:57
  Scott: industry as a whole was going to continue to
• 20:00
  Scott: change. And mostly by change,
• 20:02
  Scott: I mean contract.
• 20:04
  Scott: So I saw in BuzzFeed not only an opportunity
• 20:06
  Scott: to do like a new and interesting sort of
• 20:08
  Scott: sparkly thing. There was something shiny
• 20:09
  Scott: about it. I like talking to Joan. I liked
• 20:11
  Scott: meeting the people there. I thought they were
• 20:12
  Scott: doing this just interesting new thing.
• 20:15
  Scott: But it also felt in some ways like the safer
• 20:18
  Scott: bet than staying where I was,
• 20:19
  Scott: because it seemed to be going in the
• 20:22
  Scott: direction that the world was moving.
• 20:24
  Scott: That was a gut sense, you know,
• 20:26
  Scott: I think it turned out to be right or it was
• 20:27
  Scott: right for a very long time at BuzzFeed.
• 20:30
  Scott: But I think I had to sort of go with my gut
• 20:32
  Scott: that in the long term,
• 20:34
  Scott: the thing that I'd been doing at salon would
• 20:35
  Scott: probably, you know, the opportunities there
• 20:37
  Scott: would only be shrinking over time and
• 20:39
  Scott: BuzzFeed would probably provide new ones. And
• 20:42
  Scott: it was a lot of fun. There was like a big
• 20:43
  Scott: part of it that I was like,
• 20:44
  Scott: this job seems like it's going to be really,
• 20:47
  Scott: really good time and I'm going to learn a lot
• 20:49
  Scott: doing a new thing.
• 20:51
  Joseph: Joseph: Now, just to switch gears here a little bit,
• 20:53
  Joseph: you're having a good time at BuzzFeed.
• 20:55
  Joseph: And then at some point,
• 20:57
  Joseph: you decide that you're going to move over to
• 21:00
  Joseph: Medium. And I would be curious how you
• 21:03
  Joseph: thought through that. And again,
• 21:04
  Joseph: just kind of doing a bit of a timeline check
• 21:06
  Joseph: here. I think this transition happens between
• 21:08
  Joseph: like 2019 and 2020 ish.
• 21:11
  Joseph: Is that right?
• 21:11
  Scott: Scott: Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 21:13
  Scott: So at that point, I had been at BuzzFeed for
• 21:17
  Scott: 13 years. Oh, wow.
• 21:18
  Scott: So okay, you know, I'd gone from being at a
• 21:22
  Scott: tiny little startup.
• 21:23
  Scott: I was a little older at that point. I had
• 21:25
  Scott: gone through grad school, but like youngish
• 21:27
  Scott: in my career, figuring things out.
• 21:28
  Scott: And now BuzzFeed was this pretty established
• 21:31
  Scott: behemoth. I sort of got to rise with the
• 21:34
  Scott: company as it expanded.
• 21:35
  Scott: So it went from my initial role to overseeing
• 21:38
  Scott: really the team that did lists and quizzes at
• 21:40
  Scott: BuzzFeed.
• 21:41
  Joseph: Joseph: Oh yeah. Listen, quizzes I.
• 21:43
  Joseph: Yeah, that was I was like.
• 21:45
  Scott: Scott: That was our thing.
• 21:46
  Joseph: Joseph: Right?
• 21:46
  Scott: Scott: That was that was the thing for a while. It
• 21:48
  Scott: was again, that was like very fun to be like
• 21:50
  Scott: working on those formats and kind of seeing
• 21:52
  Scott: them take off in that particular cultural
• 21:54
  Scott: moment. Sort of my next move there was to
• 21:57
  Scott: take BuzzFeed international.
• 21:58
  Scott: So I got to see oversee the international
• 22:00
  Scott: expansion of BuzzFeed and launch in almost a
• 22:03
  Scott: half dozen countries around the world.
• 22:05
  Scott: That was also just incredibly interesting to
• 22:07
  Scott: get to sort of take BuzzFeed's model and see
• 22:09
  Scott: if it could work in Japan or Germany or
• 22:12
  Scott: Brazil. But the company also then entered
• 22:16
  Scott: what was, I think, the beginning of a pretty
• 22:17
  Scott: protracted period of of consolidation and
• 22:20
  Scott: decline as well. And the international
• 22:22
  Scott: businesses were like new.
• 22:24
  Scott: They hadn't fully established themselves.
• 22:26
  Scott: They were cost centers for the company.
• 22:28
  Scott: And so I had spent the early part of 2019
• 22:32
  Scott: doing layoffs. You know,
• 22:33
  Scott: I flew around the globe.
• 22:34
  Scott: You know, it was it was like I was in up in
• 22:36
  Scott: the air, that George Clooney movie that I was
• 22:38
  Scott: just on a plane flying around the world and
• 22:41
  Scott: delivering really bad news to people that I
• 22:43
  Scott: had hired and brought in.
• 22:45
  Scott: That was a huge bummer. And I was also like,
• 22:47
  Scott: man, it's been 13 years.
• 22:48
  Scott: I've seen a lot of the challenges in this
• 22:51
  Scott: part of the industry. I feel like I want
• 22:53
  Scott: something new. That was a moment that I
• 22:56
  Scott: started looking around and thinking about
• 22:57
  Scott: what could be next. And I did look outside of
• 23:00
  Scott: journalism. I talked to some nonprofit
• 23:02
  Scott: institutions. I thought, where are places
• 23:04
  Scott: that my skill set could be applicable that
• 23:07
  Scott: aren't just pure media and that are maybe
• 23:10
  Scott: mission driven in some way?
• 23:11
  Scott: None of those conversations landed.
• 23:14
  Scott: Obviously, I ended up going to is Medium a
• 23:17
  Scott: media company? I guess that's like a little
• 23:18
  Scott: bit of a question, but something more
• 23:19
  Scott: familiar for sure.
• 23:21
  Scott: I think I just wanted to change, I wanted a
• 23:23
  Scott: new set of challenges at that point, and I
• 23:25
  Scott: didn't want to be, I think,
• 23:27
  Scott: working in particular at an advertising
• 23:29
  Scott: driven media corporation.
• 23:30
  Scott: I think I just had seen seen enough of that
• 23:33
  Scott: for a little while and wanted something new.
• 23:39
  Joseph: Joseph: Speaking of Medium, I would really love to
• 23:42
  Joseph: spend a little bit of time here just hearing
• 23:44
  Joseph: your perspectives on Medium.
• 23:46
  Joseph: I know you've spent time there as VP of
• 23:48
  Joseph: publisher, Growth and Strategy. Now you're
• 23:50
  Joseph: the VP of content, and I have always been
• 23:54
  Joseph: impressed with Medium as a platform ever
• 23:56
  Joseph: since I first discovered it in 2014.
• 23:58
  Joseph: And I remember I first wrote my first
• 24:01
  Joseph: article, I guess not article,
• 24:03
  Joseph: but story piece or something.
• 24:04
  Joseph: Story piece or story, whatever you want to
• 24:06
  Joseph: call it on Medium.
• 24:08
  Joseph: In August of 2014, I was actually just
• 24:10
  Joseph: looking back at this and yeah,
• 24:11
  Joseph: it was on how I prepared for my first Ted
• 24:14
  Joseph: talk, because I had given a Ted talk earlier
• 24:16
  Joseph: that year. And then since then I've written
• 24:20
  Joseph: over 150 articles on the platform,
• 24:22
  Joseph: and I'm just. I'm actually not somebody who
• 24:25
  Joseph: loves writing, particularly.
• 24:28
  Joseph: And I crossed paths with a lot of people out
• 24:30
  Joseph: there who maybe think about doing writing.
• 24:32
  Joseph: They know it's a great way to drive up their
• 24:34
  Joseph: visibility, but they kind of struggle with
• 24:37
  Joseph: the idea of putting their writing out there.
• 24:39
  Joseph: I think we're all a bit self conscious of our
• 24:41
  Joseph: writing. And so for people out there who who
• 24:43
  Joseph: either do or don't like writing,
• 24:45
  Joseph: why even consider writing these days as a way
• 24:48
  Joseph: of sharing your voice versus,
• 24:51
  Joseph: let's say, video content on YouTube or even
• 24:55
  Joseph: podcasting? What we're doing here.
• 24:58
  Scott: Scott: I think there's something really inherent
• 25:01
  Scott: about the act of writing that serves two good
• 25:04
  Scott: purposes for people.
• 25:05
  Scott: One, it does sharpen your thinking.
• 25:08
  Scott: You know, writing, from my perspective at
• 25:11
  Scott: least, is not just an output,
• 25:12
  Scott: it's a process.
• 25:13
  Scott: So if you want to write something,
• 25:16
  Scott: you want to share something. I mean, the
• 25:17
  Scott: story example you gave of how you prepared
• 25:19
  Scott: for your first TEDx like that is a perfect
• 25:21
  Scott: Medium story, right?
• 25:22
  Scott: It's you sharing your personal experience.
• 25:24
  Scott: You tested this out.
• 25:26
  Scott: You obviously went on and spoke at TEDx,
• 25:29
  Scott: right? And this was about your experience of
• 25:30
  Scott: prepping for it. And that's like,
• 25:32
  Scott: I think ideally the kind of thing that we
• 25:34
  Scott: want to see happening on Medium.
• 25:36
  Scott: I think to do that, then you had to sort of
• 25:38
  Scott: organize your thoughts into like, well, what
• 25:39
  Scott: was it that I did in a way that's
• 25:41
  Scott: presentable? I feel like probably made you
• 25:43
  Scott: understand that process a lot better for
• 25:45
  Scott: yourself. So even if you at that point hadn't
• 25:48
  Scott: published anything, you know,
• 25:49
  Scott: you're already a little bit further ahead
• 25:51
  Scott: than you were before you wrote anything.
• 25:53
  Joseph: Joseph: That's true. Yeah.
• 25:54
  Scott: Scott: That's sort of value number one. And then
• 25:55
  Scott: value number two, I think the act of sharing
• 26:00
  Scott: that with the world brings so many benefits.
• 26:03
  Scott: We hear stories of people getting book deals
• 26:05
  Scott: on Medium. We hear stories of people making
• 26:08
  Scott: connections that benefit them professionally
• 26:10
  Scott: or personally on, on Medium.
• 26:12
  Scott: And I think it's people need something they
• 26:15
  Scott: want and are looking for something to respond
• 26:17
  Scott: to like that. And you have this ability to
• 26:20
  Scott: make a real impact in people's lives when you
• 26:22
  Scott: share your words.
• 26:23
  Scott: And I think video is great.
• 26:25
  Scott: Podcasts are wonderful.
• 26:26
  Scott: I'm very honored to be on here and talking
• 26:29
  Scott: with you. I love listening to people in
• 26:31
  Scott: conversation and podcasts.
• 26:33
  Scott: Writing is so portable.
• 26:36
  Scott: It is so cheap to produce,
• 26:39
  Scott: right? It's not. That's true. Time consuming.
• 26:41
  Scott: You know, you can share a lot of your ideas
• 26:43
  Scott: at a pretty high volume if you're that type
• 26:44
  Scott: of writer and thinker and sort of test out
• 26:46
  Scott: your ideas. I think there's also something
• 26:48
  Scott: beautifully incremental about it that you can
• 26:52
  Scott: share something and then get a little bit of
• 26:56
  Scott: feedback on it. You could share it with a
• 26:57
  Scott: friend or a small group of people. It could
• 26:59
  Scott: get better. You could share it with a larger
• 27:00
  Scott: group and see how it's landing with people.
• 27:03
  Scott: And that feedback loop.
• 27:04
  Scott: I think that's something that I'm very
• 27:05
  Scott: sensitive to from my time at BuzzFeed.
• 27:08
  Scott: That feedback loop is so powerful and also
• 27:11
  Scott: such a gift. And sure,
• 27:13
  Scott: you can definitely get feedback on podcasts.
• 27:15
  Scott: You can definitely get feedback on videos,
• 27:17
  Scott: but I think the sort of feedback loop on
• 27:19
  Scott: writing feels very tight to me,
• 27:21
  Scott: especially, you know, on Medium,
• 27:22
  Scott: people can highlight the sentences that are
• 27:25
  Scott: landing for them.
• 27:26
  Joseph: Joseph: Oh yeah.
• 27:26
  Scott: Scott: I love that. You can really get a sense of
• 27:28
  Scott: like, oh, this is what is really landing for
• 27:31
  Scott: the people who are reading my work. And that
• 27:33
  Scott: I think is incredibly valuable.
• 27:35
  Scott: So I hear and feel that too.
• 27:38
  Scott: The difficulty of writing is high.
• 27:40
  Scott: There's a high bar there, and the public
• 27:42
  Scott: piece of it in particular is very,
• 27:44
  Scott: very scary. So a lot of our work is us trying
• 27:47
  Scott: to figure out how do we support writers,
• 27:48
  Scott: make the act of writing and sharing feel more
• 27:51
  Scott: safe for people.
• 27:53
  Scott: Got some new products in the works that I
• 27:55
  Scott: think will kind of help with some of that.
• 27:57
  Scott: For me, as a really satisfying and sort of
• 27:59
  Scott: mission driven place to be to,
• 28:01
  Scott: you know, I believe in the power of writing,
• 28:03
  Scott: and I feel like my job is to try and help
• 28:05
  Scott: tease it out of more people.
• 28:07
  Joseph: Joseph: What you mentioned about just the act of
• 28:09
  Joseph: writing, even if you don't publish it
• 28:11
  Joseph: anywhere, it helps you synthesize and process
• 28:15
  Joseph: your own experiences and your own thoughts
• 28:18
  Joseph: when you get it down on paper.
• 28:19
  Joseph: I've kept a journal.
• 28:21
  Joseph: Well, it started off as a written journal,
• 28:22
  Joseph: and then I kind of shifted over to a typed
• 28:24
  Joseph: journal on my computer.
• 28:26
  Joseph: But I've been doing that for decades, and I
• 28:27
  Joseph: just find that it is just a really.
• 28:30
  Joseph: It's not only grounding,
• 28:31
  Joseph: but it's something that you can kind of look
• 28:33
  Joseph: back on and kind of connect with your former
• 28:36
  Joseph: self. And so it's nice.
• 28:37
  Joseph: I still do like reading people's work and I
• 28:40
  Joseph: still do enjoy writing.
• 28:41
  Joseph: I wish I was better at writing, but I do
• 28:43
  Joseph: enjoy it. I find it to be an enjoyable
• 28:45
  Joseph: process. What are some of the common mistakes
• 28:47
  Joseph: that people make when they begin to write, or
• 28:49
  Joseph: when they're starting to write for the first
• 28:51
  Joseph: time?
• 28:52
  Scott: Scott: It's really funny because I'm volunteering
• 28:53
  Scott: right now for my daughter's school.
• 28:55
  Scott: They have a newspaper, she's an elementary
• 28:57
  Scott: school, and they have a newspaper club. Oh,
• 28:59
  Scott: nice. I'm getting to work with a bunch of,
• 29:00
  Scott: you know, like ten, 11 year olds writing
• 29:03
  Scott: their first newspaper stories.
• 29:05
  Scott: And I think they make the same mistake that I
• 29:07
  Scott: see most writers, right,
• 29:10
  Scott: make when they begin writing.
• 29:11
  Scott: So this is going to sound a little
• 29:13
  Scott: contradictory to what I said about the value
• 29:15
  Scott: of writing, just purely for yourself. I think
• 29:16
  Scott: that is true. But when you're writing for an
• 29:18
  Scott: audience, the most important thing is to
• 29:21
  Scott: start with, what do I want the audience to
• 29:23
  Scott: get out of this? Is there a story that I'm
• 29:25
  Scott: sharing here? What is the value of that
• 29:27
  Scott: story? What do I want people's takeaways to
• 29:29
  Scott: be? I think because writing feels so
• 29:32
  Scott: vulnerable and you're putting your mind kind
• 29:34
  Scott: of out on the page, so to speak,
• 29:36
  Scott: for people to read.
• 29:37
  Scott: When people start writing, I think they're
• 29:39
  Scott: very focused on that experience and being
• 29:41
  Scott: like, well, I want what's on the page to
• 29:42
  Scott: match up with what's in my head.
• 29:44
  Scott: And they forget about the person on the other
• 29:46
  Scott: side of the page, or in most cases,
• 29:48
  Scott: the other side of the screen,
• 29:50
  Scott: sort of beginning writers that we see on
• 29:51
  Scott: Medium, it's a similar thing.
• 29:53
  Scott: It's essentially, you know, there's a lot of
• 29:55
  Scott: journaling that's just like very much for the
• 29:57
  Scott: writer themselves to get out in the world.
• 29:59
  Scott: And I think getting through that process and
• 30:01
  Scott: starting to see through to the other side of
• 30:04
  Scott: what is it that I'm trying to share?
• 30:05
  Scott: What is the story that I'm trying to tell,
• 30:07
  Scott: and what do I want people to take away to be
• 30:09
  Scott: kind of the first hurdle, I think, for a lot
• 30:11
  Scott: of writers to get over.
• 30:13
  Joseph: Joseph: Do you have any best practices or writing
• 30:17
  Joseph: tips for people who are getting started,
• 30:21
  Joseph: and maybe they just don't even know what to
• 30:24
  Joseph: like? They know they want to write, but they
• 30:25
  Joseph: don't know what they want to write about. Any
• 30:27
  Joseph: thoughts on how to just narrow the field a
• 30:30
  Joseph: little bit in the sea of things you could
• 30:33
  Joseph: write about as a writer?
• 30:36
  Scott: Scott: This advice is so pedestrian.
• 30:39
  Scott: I'm almost sad to share it, but I also
• 30:40
  Scott: believe very deeply in it.
• 30:42
  Scott: You just have to write a lot. You don't have
• 30:44
  Scott: to publish a lot, but you do have to write a
• 30:46
  Scott: lot, because I think I have found that people
• 30:49
  Scott: aren't able to sort of get to that thing,
• 30:52
  Scott: like, what is it that I really want to write
• 30:54
  Scott: without doing the activity of writing?
• 30:56
  Scott: One of my favorite books ever is a very short
• 30:59
  Scott: book called Art and fear,
• 31:01
  Scott: and it's sort of about the artistic creative
• 31:03
  Scott: process, really, really easy read.
• 31:05
  Scott: And there's a central parable in there about
• 31:08
  Scott: an art professor at the beginning of the
• 31:10
  Scott: semester. Offers people in the class kind of
• 31:12
  Scott: two choices of how they are going to get
• 31:14
  Scott: graded. One, they can turn in just a single
• 31:16
  Scott: piece at the end of the semester, and he's
• 31:17
  Scott: going to grade them on that, or they can make
• 31:20
  Scott: a bunch of pieces over the course of the
• 31:21
  Scott: time, and he's going to weigh the total
• 31:23
  Scott: number of pieces, and they're going to be
• 31:25
  Scott: judged on the weight of what they've made.
• 31:27
  Scott: Sorry, this is a ceramics class.
• 31:30
  Scott: He has done this over years,
• 31:31
  Scott: and he consistently found that the students
• 31:33
  Scott: who chose sort of the volume direction,
• 31:36
  Scott: the weight direction, their pieces were
• 31:38
  Scott: always better than the folks who just chose
• 31:40
  Scott: to turn in one at the end of the semester,
• 31:42
  Scott: and that it was really you only get better by
• 31:45
  Scott: doing. And I think that's so,
• 31:46
  Scott: so true for writing.
• 31:47
  Scott: You know, I've been really interested.
• 31:49
  Scott: I'm like, I'm jealous to hear about your
• 31:50
  Scott: journaling practice because I think that's
• 31:52
  Scott: extremely valuable. And I've never had that
• 31:54
  Scott: for myself personally, but lately have been
• 31:57
  Scott: doing morning pages, which are very,
• 31:59
  Scott: you know, I think a lot of writers talk about
• 32:01
  Scott: doing morning pages. You kind of get up and
• 32:02
  Scott: try and get roughly 750 words onto the page
• 32:06
  Scott: right at the beginning of the day that you
• 32:08
  Scott: then never look back at, like you're not
• 32:09
  Scott: doing anything with this, where it's just
• 32:11
  Scott: getting the words out.
• 32:12
  Scott: And I have found I'm developing a slightly
• 32:16
  Scott: different voice through doing that. I'm like
• 32:19
  Scott: noticing some patterns in what I'm writing
• 32:21
  Scott: about. And I'm like, oh, there's something
• 32:22
  Scott: here that obviously interested that I might
• 32:24
  Scott: want to take and kind of pull out and put
• 32:26
  Scott: into a piece somewhere.
• 32:27
  Scott: So unfortunately, the only way out is
• 32:30
  Scott: through. I think with writing.
• 32:33
  Joseph: Joseph: I do find that the act of writing and just
• 32:35
  Joseph: doing it is helpful, like doing it without
• 32:38
  Joseph: judgment, which I think is why I like the
• 32:40
  Joseph: journaling thing, because there's no
• 32:41
  Joseph: audience. It's just me sharing my honest
• 32:44
  Joseph: thoughts with myself and either this piece of
• 32:47
  Joseph: paper or this screen, and that's it.
• 32:49
  Joseph: And so I find that that's useful.
• 32:51
  Joseph: I started doing that when I was in junior
• 32:53
  Joseph: high, just like in a, I was like,
• 32:54
  Joseph: in a word, perfect document at the time when
• 32:57
  Joseph: WordPerfect was around.
• 32:59
  Joseph: And then, yeah, I still do it.
• 33:01
  Joseph: I just don't do it as often because I always
• 33:03
  Joseph: find excuses is what I hear from a lot of
• 33:06
  Joseph: people. There's always a reason to not write,
• 33:08
  Joseph: and it feels like a lot of friction there.
• 33:11
  Scott: Scott: And it's tough because it's very rare that
• 33:13
  Scott: there is a reason to write.
• 33:15
  Scott: I mean, no one is knocking down your door to
• 33:18
  Scott: get your thoughts right.
• 33:20
  Scott: Like, I think that's true even for
• 33:21
  Scott: professional writers. Like that's just not
• 33:24
  Scott: how the world operates.
• 33:25
  Scott: So you've got to have some grace with
• 33:27
  Scott: yourself.
• 33:33
  Joseph: Joseph: I've got a couple other topics here that I'm
• 33:35
  Joseph: hoping to cover with you about kind of
• 33:37
  Joseph: getting into more of the technicalities of
• 33:38
  Joseph: it. And also just, I want to touch on AI,
• 33:40
  Joseph: but also just the impact on your career.
• 33:42
  Joseph: So I know you mentioned just now, like people
• 33:44
  Joseph: don't always have really clear,
• 33:46
  Joseph: obvious reasons to write.
• 33:48
  Joseph: So therefore the motivation may not be there
• 33:51
  Joseph: to do it. What role do you think Medium or
• 33:54
  Joseph: even just writing in general publicly,
• 33:56
  Joseph: can play in the development of one's personal
• 33:59
  Joseph: brand and also professional reputation?
• 34:02
  Scott: Scott: I really think it's probably the most
• 34:03
  Scott: powerful lever that people have outside of
• 34:06
  Scott: their actual work.
• 34:07
  Scott: So, you know, your performance at work,
• 34:09
  Scott: the amount of impact that you're able to have
• 34:11
  Scott: and the job that you do is obviously,
• 34:13
  Scott: if you're switching jobs,
• 34:16
  Scott: the thing that a lot of employers are going
• 34:17
  Scott: to look at, having a surface area of your
• 34:23
  Scott: thoughts that are out there in the world,
• 34:25
  Scott: to me, feels like such a way to accelerate
• 34:28
  Scott: that. I don't know, I'm just imagining,
• 34:30
  Scott: even for myself in the hiring process,
• 34:32
  Scott: if I have a candidate who has a great resume
• 34:36
  Scott: and interviews well, but no written work and
• 34:38
  Scott: someone who does also have written work, I
• 34:40
  Scott: have immediate access into so much more of
• 34:42
  Scott: their perspective on the world,
• 34:44
  Scott: their understanding, their approach, where
• 34:46
  Scott: they're coming from. It makes them just so
• 34:48
  Scott: much more legible to me as an employer.
• 34:51
  Scott: And I think having that legibility opens up
• 34:54
  Scott: all sorts of opportunities.
• 34:55
  Scott: You know, when I a couple of years ago
• 34:57
  Scott: started writing about AI policy at Medium,
• 34:59
  Scott: and I was doing it in my professional
• 35:01
  Scott: capacity. It wasn't sort of a side project
• 35:03
  Scott: blog that I was writing about, but I was
• 35:04
  Scott: trying to be reflective and talk a little bit
• 35:07
  Scott: about the experience that Medium was going
• 35:09
  Scott: through as we were starting to grapple with
• 35:11
  Scott: AI. And it just opened up a whole bunch of
• 35:13
  Scott: conversations of people that I might want to
• 35:15
  Scott: work with in the future, or panels that I
• 35:17
  Scott: could join. So I think for people,
• 35:20
  Scott: it feels like the simplest.
• 35:21
  Scott: Again, it's very cost effective.
• 35:25
  Scott: No special equipment that you need.
• 35:26
  Scott: You know, you don't really even need to
• 35:28
  Scott: again, spin up a website.
• 35:30
  Scott: And I'm not just plugging that.
• 35:31
  Scott: People come and use Medium. There are a lot
• 35:33
  Scott: of tools that will host your words for free.
• 35:36
  Scott: It's also very easy for other people to
• 35:38
  Scott: connect with and to understand.
• 35:40
  Scott: It has, I think, a really healthy effect on
• 35:43
  Scott: just increasing your value as a potential
• 35:47
  Scott: employee, as a person in the world,
• 35:49
  Scott: and opens up a lot of doors.
• 35:50
  Scott: So I really feel like everyone is a writer.
• 35:54
  Scott: The identity of a writer really cuts both
• 35:57
  Scott: ways because there's the sort of capital W,
• 35:59
  Scott: you you know, version of a serious literary
• 36:02
  Scott: writer. But we're all writers. We write texts
• 36:05
  Scott: every day like you're in written
• 36:06
  Scott: communication pretty much constantly,
• 36:09
  Scott: I think, in our lives.
• 36:10
  Scott: And we don't then translate that into,
• 36:14
  Scott: oh, I can write about my life. I can write
• 36:15
  Scott: about my work in a way that would be
• 36:17
  Scott: interesting to people.
• 36:19
  Scott: I think that's really at the core of the
• 36:21
  Scott: mission for Medium, which I'm really
• 36:22
  Scott: personally very aligned with,
• 36:25
  Scott: is trying to get people to make that
• 36:27
  Scott: connection and share more of their writing
• 36:29
  Scott: with the world.
• 36:30
  Joseph: Joseph: I do cross paths with people who attend my
• 36:33
  Joseph: personal branding workshops. I do mention
• 36:35
  Joseph: Medium in those workshops as a platform
• 36:37
  Joseph: people should consider.
• 36:38
  Joseph: Sometimes I'll get asked by people.
• 36:41
  Joseph: I also do some writing for Forbes.
• 36:42
  Joseph: They'll ask me like, do you get paid for
• 36:44
  Joseph: this? Because you mentioned cost effective?
• 36:45
  Joseph: And I was looking at your LinkedIn background
• 36:47
  Joseph: image, Scott. And it says on there that you
• 36:49
  Joseph: love paywalls.
• 36:51
  Joseph: And I know this is getting into the weeds a
• 36:52
  Joseph: little bit, but like to paywall or not to
• 36:55
  Joseph: paywall your articles,
• 36:56
  Joseph: like how much should people be thinking about
• 36:58
  Joseph: that when they're writing?
• 37:00
  Joseph: And I know this must depend on the
• 37:02
  Joseph: individual, but I'd just love to hear your
• 37:04
  Joseph: thoughts on paywalled articles versus free
• 37:07
  Joseph: articles.
• 37:08
  Scott: Scott: It does obviously depend a lot on your
• 37:10
  Scott: profile, kind of what it is that you're
• 37:11
  Scott: trying to do in the world.
• 37:13
  Scott: You know, a lot of the best writing on Medium
• 37:15
  Scott: is not behind a paywall.
• 37:16
  Scott: We have a lot of people who are there, you
• 37:17
  Scott: know, they want to make money with their
• 37:19
  Scott: writing, but they're making money by landing
• 37:21
  Scott: clients, opening up opportunities like they
• 37:24
  Scott: see it as a way to develop a client base or
• 37:28
  Scott: pitch for business through their ideas. And
• 37:29
  Scott: that's hugely valuable.
• 37:30
  Scott: But you're not getting paid directly for the
• 37:32
  Scott: words. Earning a living as a person who only
• 37:35
  Scott: writes words is tough.
• 37:37
  Scott: I came from journalism that was not a
• 37:39
  Scott: lucrative career. In a lot of ways,
• 37:41
  Scott: there are fewer and fewer places who are
• 37:43
  Scott: paying directly for writing, so there's a
• 37:45
  Scott: path there, I think, for folks to think
• 37:48
  Scott: about. What is the driving force behind pay
• 37:51
  Scott: walling your your stories is,
• 37:52
  Scott: I think, really important. I believe in that
• 37:55
  Scott: image on my LinkedIn is a little bit tongue
• 37:57
  Scott: in cheek, but also, you know,
• 37:59
  Scott: that's how I get paid is a paywall.
• 38:02
  Scott: And I've seen the other side,
• 38:05
  Scott: advertising based media has a lot of its own
• 38:08
  Scott: problems. I feel like subscription based
• 38:09
  Scott: media and something based on a paywall,
• 38:12
  Scott: it's like democracy. What's the quote?
• 38:14
  Scott: It's the least bad form of government or
• 38:18
  Scott: it's, you know.
• 38:19
  Joseph: Joseph: Right. So it's exactly yes.
• 38:23
  Scott: Scott: Paywalls are by no means perfect,
• 38:25
  Scott: but I feel like there are a much better
• 38:27
  Scott: alternative to advertising based media.
• 38:29
  Scott: But it's a really tricky and I think very
• 38:31
  Scott: personal decision for folks about when it is
• 38:33
  Scott: that they want to pay all their stuff versus
• 38:35
  Scott: having it be out there and be free.
• 38:38
  Joseph: Joseph: I don't think I pay well any of my articles.
• 38:40
  Joseph: It's for the reasons you mentioned, Scott. I
• 38:42
  Joseph: kind of see it as both a way for me to share
• 38:44
  Joseph: my thoughts with the world and kind of give
• 38:46
  Joseph: to people, and also just to be kind of
• 38:49
  Joseph: ruthlessly practical about it. I would like
• 38:51
  Joseph: people to see my writing. And so I see it as
• 38:53
  Joseph: like content and kind of a marketing channel
• 38:56
  Joseph: and, but mostly just to kind of just share
• 38:58
  Joseph: with people and just to give.
• 39:00
  Joseph: So I got one more question for you here about
• 39:03
  Joseph: Medium specifically.
• 39:04
  Joseph: Scott. And I would love to also talk about
• 39:06
  Joseph: some of the lessons you've learned along the
• 39:07
  Joseph: way of your career change journey. But we got
• 39:08
  Joseph: to talk about AI, and I would be very curious
• 39:12
  Joseph: to hear your thoughts.
• 39:14
  Joseph: I mean, you are at the bleeding edge of this.
• 39:16
  Joseph: Like, what impact do you think AI has had on
• 39:18
  Joseph: writing quality?
• 39:20
  Joseph: I'll say the follow up question, which
• 39:21
  Joseph: relates to how you're dealing with AI
• 39:24
  Joseph: assisted engineering. But I'm just curious,
• 39:26
  Joseph: what impact do you think AI has been having
• 39:27
  Joseph: on the writing quality that you've seen out
• 39:29
  Joseph: there?
• 39:30
  Scott: Scott: It's not great for Medium in particular,
• 39:33
  Scott: but I feel like I'm seeing this elsewhere as
• 39:35
  Scott: well. There's kind of like a double whammy of
• 39:38
  Scott: impact one, because it is now so simple to
• 39:42
  Scott: generate really any amount of text that you
• 39:44
  Scott: want, put it into article form.
• 39:46
  Scott: There's been a deluge, there's been a wave of
• 39:49
  Scott: AI slop. And it's not like there was bad
• 39:53
  Scott: wasn't bad writing prior to this.
• 39:56
  Scott: You know, it used to be that our trust and
• 39:58
  Scott: safety and moderation teams at Medium would
• 40:00
  Scott: spend time checking for plagiarism.
• 40:03
  Scott: So we had tools that would help us do this.
• 40:05
  Scott: And, you know, there were sort of hallmarks
• 40:07
  Scott: of certain types of stories that you're like,
• 40:08
  Scott: that's really interesting that this writer is
• 40:10
  Scott: writing about, you know,
• 40:11
  Scott: both 18th century French literature and,
• 40:15
  Scott: you know, JavaScript programing. Like that's
• 40:16
  Scott: weird. Where are they getting these ideas?
• 40:19
  Scott: And like, you would check and be like, oh,
• 40:20
  Scott: they're just cutting and pasting from other
• 40:22
  Scott: websites. That has declined dramatically
• 40:25
  Scott: because there's kind of no reason to go like
• 40:27
  Scott: it's too much work to go cut and paste when
• 40:28
  Scott: you can just put a prompt into AI.
• 40:31
  Scott: So for a long time, I, you know, I think
• 40:32
  Scott: there were so many hallmarks of AI writing.
• 40:34
  Scott: It was like relatively easy even for a human
• 40:36
  Scott: to spot. We have not found a programmatic way
• 40:38
  Scott: to spot this. So I think it has created a
• 40:42
  Scott: situation where there's now an environment
• 40:44
  Scott: that is filled with a lot of low quality,
• 40:46
  Scott: slop driven writing that's bad in and of
• 40:50
  Scott: itself. But I think the second order effect
• 40:52
  Scott: is that it's having, at least for me.
• 40:54
  Scott: And I think this is going to be true for a
• 40:56
  Scott: lot of people in the future.
• 40:58
  Scott: I now question almost everything I read.
• 41:01
  Joseph: Joseph: Me too. Yeah. Me too.
• 41:03
  Scott: Scott: And it's very taxing.
• 41:05
  Scott: Yeah. It's like an extra step. Oh,
• 41:06
  Scott: God. Now I have to, like,
• 41:09
  Scott: do some vetting or sort of think through if I
• 41:11
  Scott: think that this is AI or not.
• 41:14
  Scott: This is a big question for Medium.
• 41:15
  Scott: At a platform level. We're wondering what do
• 41:17
  Scott: we need to put in place to make that question
• 41:20
  Scott: go away for you as a reader on Medium or
• 41:23
  Scott: we're not there yet, but like, ideally,
• 41:25
  Scott: you're not going to have that question, I
• 41:27
  Scott: hope going to the New York Times,
• 41:30
  Scott: part of the value of institutional media like
• 41:34
  Scott: that is that you kind of need to have some
• 41:36
  Scott: trust in the people who are producing it.
• 41:38
  Scott: But for user generated platforms like Medium,
• 41:41
  Scott: I think the future is going to have to be
• 41:42
  Scott: something like there's some level of
• 41:45
  Scott: verification and trust that we're doing at a
• 41:46
  Scott: platform level so that people don't have this
• 41:48
  Scott: question. I think the other thing is,
• 41:50
  Scott: though, like I will say in the positive side,
• 41:53
  Scott: the idea of writing things that are both
• 41:55
  Scott: human and AI legible, I think is really
• 41:58
  Scott: interesting and really, really valuable. I've
• 42:01
  Scott: been doing some work with AI tools,
• 42:03
  Scott: just looking back at my own writing and
• 42:06
  Scott: pulling out themes, or I'm writing about a
• 42:07
  Scott: particular topic and I'm like, I'm curious
• 42:09
  Scott: what I've written about this before, and
• 42:11
  Scott: being able to pull from my own archive into
• 42:13
  Scott: something that I'm writing now is really
• 42:14
  Scott: valuable. Like there's something I now have a
• 42:17
  Scott: mechanical assistant who can do a thing that
• 42:19
  Scott: would be really time consuming and labor
• 42:21
  Scott: intensive for me, for my just my own work.
• 42:24
  Scott: And that feels like the beginning of a lot of
• 42:26
  Scott: possibility of what that relationship is
• 42:29
  Scott: going to look like. So I think I'm really
• 42:32
  Scott: interested in like skating along that line,
• 42:34
  Scott: like, what are the things that this will
• 42:35
  Scott: unlock for us at the same time?
• 42:38
  Scott: Right now, the overwhelming impact I think of
• 42:41
  Scott: AI on writing has been to really to cheapen
• 42:44
  Scott: it both for consumers and for writers.
• 42:46
  Scott: I think also, you know, we've been talking a
• 42:48
  Scott: little bit today about how difficult writing
• 42:50
  Scott: is. Now we have a shortcut for it,
• 42:53
  Scott: for people. And I think the thing that gets
• 42:54
  Scott: lost there is the thing that I talked about
• 42:56
  Scott: first of like, it helps you sharpen your
• 42:58
  Scott: thinking. And if you're not doing the
• 42:59
  Scott: writing, that step is being skipped entirely.
• 43:03
  Joseph: Joseph: That's so interesting,
• 43:04
  Joseph: Scott. I definitely have noticed an increase
• 43:07
  Joseph: in AI generated content submitted to a couple
• 43:11
  Joseph: of the Medium publications that I host.
• 43:14
  Joseph: Like it's been a pretty high percentage just
• 43:16
  Joseph: recently. I just like in the last few months,
• 43:18
  Joseph: it's like 100%.
• 43:19
  Joseph: I'll run it through something like Pangram or
• 43:21
  Joseph: something to detect whether I've seen like an
• 43:23
  Joseph: influx of AI pitches for Forbes articles and
• 43:27
  Joseph: requesting source input,
• 43:29
  Joseph: which is, as you mentioned, kind of makes my
• 43:30
  Joseph: life as a writer way more difficult because I
• 43:31
  Joseph: got to then take this extra step to first
• 43:34
  Joseph: check to make sure the expert input is
• 43:35
  Joseph: genuine. But at the same time,
• 43:37
  Joseph: I think what you're saying is really
• 43:38
  Joseph: interesting too, because you can use it as a
• 43:40
  Joseph: tool to comb through your writing.
• 43:42
  Joseph: I recently had to go through my historical
• 43:44
  Joseph: writing on Medium and kind of share with me
• 43:46
  Joseph: what trend it's noticed in my writing style.
• 43:49
  Joseph: And it was interesting to read through it
• 43:51
  Joseph: said, yeah, you started off being very
• 43:53
  Joseph: prescriptive. Now you're being a little bit
• 43:54
  Joseph: more personal, a little bit more vulnerable.
• 43:56
  Joseph: I thought, okay, that's, that's interesting
• 43:57
  Joseph: to see. So I think it can be an interesting,
• 43:59
  Joseph: right? Yeah, it can be an interesting tool to
• 44:01
  Joseph: vet your writing.
• 44:03
  Scott: Scott: I would like to be able to have that
• 44:04
  Scott: conversation about my own writing. I'm not
• 44:05
  Scott: going to have that with another person. And
• 44:07
  Scott: these tools, I think are pretty fantastic for
• 44:10
  Scott: that. And we're, you know, it's early, early,
• 44:12
  Scott: early, early stage, but very mindful of both
• 44:15
  Scott: the pluses and minuses.
• 44:17
  Joseph: Joseph: The last thing I was hoping to talk with you
• 44:19
  Joseph: about before we wrap up is just some of the
• 44:22
  Joseph: lessons you've learned in your own career
• 44:24
  Joseph: journey, because it's gone through these
• 44:26
  Joseph: different chapters, and I would be curious to
• 44:29
  Joseph: hear about how you now think about your
• 44:31
  Joseph: career looking back on it. So like, if you
• 44:33
  Joseph: could go back and redo how you approached
• 44:36
  Joseph: something during your career evolution,
• 44:40
  Joseph: does anything come to mind?
• 44:43
  Scott: Scott: I think the thing that for me has been the
• 44:45
  Scott: most valuable.
• 44:47
  Scott: I don't know. Skill is the right word,
• 44:48
  Scott: but maybe a mindset that I've cultivated over
• 44:51
  Scott: time has been adaptability that's been forced
• 44:54
  Scott: on me a little bit. You know, I went into the
• 44:55
  Scott: media industry at the dawn of the internet
• 44:58
  Scott: age, taking over and then mobile,
• 45:00
  Scott: and it has just been a constant period of
• 45:02
  Scott: change through the entire course of my
• 45:04
  Scott: career. And I think the moments that have
• 45:06
  Scott: felt the most challenging have been the ones
• 45:08
  Scott: with the most change. And the challenge has
• 45:10
  Scott: mostly been my resistance to change.
• 45:14
  Scott: And I feel like when I've made missteps,
• 45:16
  Scott: it's been moments where I wasn't like,
• 45:18
  Scott: all right, I'm gonna let it go and I'm going
• 45:19
  Scott: to go with this new thing because that's the
• 45:21
  Scott: direction that the world is heading in.
• 45:23
  Scott: And that can be really scary because again,
• 45:25
  Scott: you're operating then on faith or intuition.
• 45:28
  Scott: It's not, you're taking a bet.
• 45:30
  Scott: But I have found every time that I didn't
• 45:32
  Scott: take the bet, I've regretted it. And every
• 45:34
  Scott: time I did take the bet, you know,
• 45:35
  Scott: I'm on salon and then on BuzzFeed.
• 45:38
  Scott: And to a certain extent on Medium, you know,
• 45:40
  Scott: Mediums changed a lot in the time that I've
• 45:42
  Scott: been there and I've had to re-up with a
• 45:43
  Scott: number of those changes.
• 45:45
  Scott: That's turned out to be the right way to go.
• 45:51
  Joseph: Joseph: When you look back on your career change
• 45:53
  Joseph: journey and your career evolution,
• 45:55
  Joseph: what's something that you wished that you had
• 45:58
  Joseph: known, that you now know it might relate to
• 46:02
  Joseph: what you just mentioned?
• 46:05
  Scott: Scott: I mean, I think if I knew what was coming
• 46:06
  Scott: with the internet, I would have gotten in
• 46:08
  Scott: there a lot. Even even earlier in,
• 46:11
  Scott: in that direction. I think thinking about the
• 46:13
  Scott: moments of career change,
• 46:15
  Scott: I wish I'd gotten more clear advice early on
• 46:18
  Scott: about the importance of having a network of
• 46:21
  Scott: people that you trust in the industry.
• 46:23
  Scott: I think all of those sort of inflection
• 46:26
  Scott: moments. What's been most helpful,
• 46:28
  Scott: and that I wish that I always had more of,
• 46:30
  Scott: was people who are peers or mentors that I
• 46:35
  Scott: can go to to get good advice.
• 46:36
  Scott: Like, I think if I could go back and change
• 46:38
  Scott: anything, it would have been putting more
• 46:40
  Scott: time in early in my career to build out that
• 46:42
  Scott: network. I feel like I have an okay one now,
• 46:44
  Scott: but there are moments in the past where I
• 46:46
  Scott: think it would have been so useful to have
• 46:49
  Scott: some older, wiser heads to go to in moments
• 46:52
  Scott: of big change. I think that's a really
• 46:54
  Scott: valuable asset that anyone in any stage of
• 46:56
  Scott: their careers could probably work on even
• 46:58
  Scott: more.
• 46:59
  Joseph: Joseph: Having been through your journey, what's one
• 47:01
  Joseph: thing that you've learned about yourself
• 47:03
  Joseph: along the way? Because you've successfully
• 47:06
  Joseph: navigated actually quite a few career pivots
• 47:08
  Joseph: yourself.
• 47:10
  Scott: Scott: There's this expression,
• 47:12
  Scott: I think, from the poet John Keats about
• 47:14
  Scott: negative capability, the idea that you,
• 47:17
  Scott: you know, when you're in doubts, when you're
• 47:19
  Scott: trying to decide about different things that
• 47:20
  Scott: you don't grasp after certainties or concrete
• 47:24
  Scott: things. And I'm sort of surprised to know
• 47:26
  Scott: that I'm a person that can operate that way.
• 47:29
  Scott: I am okay in situations of really high
• 47:32
  Scott: ambiguity. It's why I think a lot of my time
• 47:34
  Scott: I've spent at startups in various stages of
• 47:37
  Scott: their careers, because that's what a startup
• 47:39
  Scott: is all about, right? Is sort of taking
• 47:41
  Scott: uncertainty and seeing if you can turn it
• 47:43
  Scott: into a business.
• 47:44
  Scott: And that's been a surprising thing to learn
• 47:46
  Scott: about myself over the years.
• 47:48
  Joseph: Joseph: Final question for you.
• 47:50
  Joseph: I can't let you go without asking you one
• 47:53
  Joseph: more piece of advice related to content and
• 47:55
  Joseph: writing. So as someone yourself who's been
• 47:56
  Joseph: involved in the world of content as a writer,
• 47:58
  Joseph: yourself, as an editor,
• 47:59
  Joseph: as a strategist, if you could share one piece
• 48:02
  Joseph: of advice with somebody who's thinking about
• 48:06
  Joseph: writing on a platform like Medium,
• 48:09
  Joseph: but is just a little bit reluctant to do it,
• 48:12
  Joseph: even though they know that it could help
• 48:14
  Joseph: drive more visibility for themselves in the
• 48:16
  Joseph: ways that you described before,
• 48:19
  Joseph: what would you tell that person?
• 48:22
  Scott: Scott: I would say to find your way in,
• 48:24
  Scott: and what I mean by that is that one of the
• 48:26
  Scott: things that I love about comment sections and
• 48:30
  Scott: social media, you can get into sharing your
• 48:34
  Scott: words without having to write a story,
• 48:36
  Scott: respond to someone's piece with a thoughtful
• 48:39
  Scott: idea and see how that lands.
• 48:41
  Scott: It's much lower bar, not having to write a
• 48:43
  Scott: headline. You're not having to publish a
• 48:45
  Scott: thing under your own name.
• 48:46
  Scott: Respond to someone on threads who has said
• 48:49
  Scott: something that you think is actually
• 48:50
  Scott: interesting, like start a conversation
• 48:52
  Scott: somewhere. It's a much lower bar to entry to
• 48:56
  Scott: start getting into the idea of feeling like
• 48:58
  Scott: I'm going to be putting my ideas out into the
• 49:01
  Scott: world, and people are going to be judging
• 49:03
  Scott: them or taking them out of context.
• 49:05
  Scott: But I think it's a good way to experiment
• 49:07
  Scott: with like, do I like this?
• 49:08
  Scott: And am I able to take what's in my head and
• 49:11
  Scott: express it in a way that's useful as part of
• 49:13
  Scott: a conversation?
• 49:14
  Scott: So I think starting there. I mean, in
• 49:16
  Scott: general, my advice is just produce as much as
• 49:17
  Scott: you possibly can through volume.
• 49:21
  Scott: You will find your way to quality and to
• 49:23
  Scott: self-understanding. But I think, you know,
• 49:24
  Scott: you got to start somewhere. And I think
• 49:26
  Scott: starting in those lower pressure situations
• 49:28
  Scott: is a good way to start just testing the
• 49:30
  Scott: waters.
• 49:32
  Joseph: Joseph: Fantastic advice, Scott,
• 49:33
  Joseph: and I'm going to keep that in mind myself.
• 49:35
  Joseph: I'm actually working on drafting up a book
• 49:38
  Joseph: proposal right now. I mean,
• 49:40
  Joseph: I run into all sorts of barriers myself just
• 49:42
  Joseph: mentally with procrastination.
• 49:45
  Joseph: Not doing it.
• 49:46
  Joseph: Perfectionism. So.
• 49:47
  Joseph: So I think your advice about just like not
• 49:49
  Joseph: putting too much pressure on yourself and
• 49:51
  Joseph: starting with the low hanging fruit is a good
• 49:53
  Joseph: way of thinking about it.
• 49:54
  Scott: Scott: So congratulations.
• 49:56
  Scott: That's a big next step.
• 49:57
  Joseph: Joseph: We'll see how it goes. Yeah, we'll see how it
• 49:59
  Joseph: goes. All right. Well,
• 50:00
  Joseph: thank you so much, Scott,
• 50:01
  Joseph: for telling us more about your life and
• 50:02
  Joseph: publishing and content and your perspectives
• 50:04
  Joseph: on Medium, tips on writing,
• 50:06
  Joseph: and also just reminding us of the importance
• 50:08
  Joseph: of allowing your career to evolve over time.
• 50:11
  Joseph: So I really appreciate you coming on to
• 50:13
  Joseph: Career Relaunch®, and best of luck with
• 50:14
  Joseph: everything you're doing there.
• 50:15
  Scott: Scott: Thank you so much, Joseph. This has been a
• 50:17
  Scott: great conversation. Thank you so much for
• 50:18
  Scott: having me on. I really enjoyed it.
• 50:22
  Joseph: Joseph: So I hope you enjoyed hearing Scott's
• 50:24
  Joseph: perspectives on how writing sharpens your
• 50:26
  Joseph: thinking, why consistency matters more than
• 50:28
  Joseph: perfection, and how even putting your ideas
• 50:30
  Joseph: out there can create new opportunities.
• 50:32
  Joseph: Now it's time to wrap up with today's mental
• 50:34
  Joseph: fuel, where I'm going to share my own journey
• 50:36
  Joseph: into writing professionally,
• 50:38
  Joseph: including a few of the ups and downs along
• 50:40
  Joseph: the way. Before we get to today's Mental
• 50:44
  Joseph: Fuel®, I wanted to thank Wispr Flow for
• 50:46
  Joseph: supporting this episode of the Career
• 50:48
  Joseph: Relaunch® podcast.
• 50:49
  Joseph: Whether it's writing out voiceovers for this
• 50:51
  Joseph: show or crafting longer written articles,
• 50:53
  Joseph: I've increasingly begun dictating instead of
• 50:56
  Joseph: typing. I just find it way faster,
• 50:58
  Joseph: less error prone than my typing,
• 51:00
  Joseph: and a lot more natural.
• 51:01
  Joseph: So my writing sounds like me.
• 51:03
  Joseph: I know there are a lot of dictation apps out
• 51:05
  Joseph: there, and I've tried a bunch myself.
• 51:07
  Joseph: The best one I've found is Whisper Flow.
• 51:10
  Joseph: It makes writing so much faster with seamless
• 51:12
  Joseph: voice dictation.
• 51:13
  Joseph: It edits while you speak,
• 51:15
  Joseph: and it just works really well to turn your
• 51:17
  Joseph: thoughts into clear, polished text.
• 51:19
  Joseph: Try whisper flow yourself at
• 51:21
  Joseph: careerrelaunch.net/wispr that's
• 51:24
  Joseph: careerrelaunch.net/wispr.
• 51:31
  Joseph: This is the part of the show called Mental
• 51:33
  Joseph: Fuel®, where I finished the show with a brief
• 51:35
  Joseph: personal story related to one of the topics
• 51:37
  Joseph: we covered today, and wrap up with a simple
• 51:39
  Joseph: challenge to help you move forward with your
• 51:40
  Joseph: own career goals.
• 51:42
  Joseph: And for today's Mental Fuel,
• 51:43
  Joseph: I wanted to give you a glimpse into the ups
• 51:46
  Joseph: and downs of my own writing that I've done
• 51:48
  Joseph: both personally and professionally.
• 51:50
  Joseph: And I'm hoping that sharing my story can help
• 51:53
  Joseph: normalize the challenges around writing that
• 51:56
  Joseph: you feel blocks you from doing more writing
• 51:58
  Joseph: than you actually would like to do.
• 52:01
  Joseph: So going back to when I was a kid,
• 52:04
  Joseph: I remember reading and writing to be one of
• 52:07
  Joseph: my worst subjects compared to things like
• 52:09
  Joseph: science and math.
• 52:10
  Joseph: And it's actually ironic because when I was
• 52:13
  Joseph: in the second grade, my teacher told me to
• 52:15
  Joseph: join the third grade reading class.
• 52:17
  Joseph: So three times a week I would go across the
• 52:19
  Joseph: hall and join the third graders.
• 52:22
  Joseph: Sounds exciting, right?
• 52:23
  Joseph: Not exactly. All of this ended up backfiring.
• 52:27
  Joseph: I'd read the third grade books,
• 52:30
  Joseph: and I'd have to turn in my written homework,
• 52:33
  Joseph: respond to some of the questions about the
• 52:34
  Joseph: book, and what I remember from that
• 52:37
  Joseph: experience was getting most of the questions
• 52:40
  Joseph: wrong. And when the third grade teacher would
• 52:43
  Joseph: go around the room and ask each student to
• 52:45
  Joseph: answer a question about the book and what we
• 52:47
  Joseph: remembered, I got a lot of those answers
• 52:50
  Joseph: wrong, too. While it felt like everyone else
• 52:52
  Joseph: was getting them right,
• 52:54
  Joseph: and I know that logically this shouldn't have
• 52:56
  Joseph: bothered me because I was the only second
• 52:58
  Joseph: grader in the third grade reading class,
• 53:00
  Joseph: but it really dealt a major blow to my
• 53:03
  Joseph: confidence. And from that point on,
• 53:05
  Joseph: I became very self-conscious of my reading
• 53:08
  Joseph: and writing. And I'd say for most of my
• 53:11
  Joseph: childhood, I felt like my writing skills
• 53:14
  Joseph: lagged behind.
• 53:15
  Joseph: I got worse grades in English.
• 53:17
  Joseph: My English scores were always lower than my
• 53:19
  Joseph: math scores on college entrance exams,
• 53:21
  Joseph: and I honestly just didn't really like
• 53:24
  Joseph: reading and writing as much as I did,
• 53:26
  Joseph: working through formulas and equations and
• 53:28
  Joseph: science and math. I did,
• 53:30
  Joseph: however, keep a diary as a child.
• 53:34
  Joseph: At the age of 13, I would write a single
• 53:38
  Joseph: paragraph each day in a digital journal,
• 53:41
  Joseph: which was just a plain text document.
• 53:43
  Joseph: I filed away into a very nested folder on our
• 53:46
  Joseph: family PC. I still have all the files,
• 53:50
  Joseph: and I'll just read you my first entry from
• 53:54
  Joseph: Friday, June 14th, 1991,
• 53:58
  Joseph: which says I got my hair cut in the morning.
• 54:03
  Joseph: I played Paper Boy, which was a video game.
• 54:06
  Joseph: The day was going well until our car brakes
• 54:09
  Joseph: got screwed up, so Mom and Dad had to take
• 54:12
  Joseph: the car to Toyota.
• 54:14
  Joseph: While they were out, I marinated some chicken
• 54:17
  Joseph: and played outside.
• 54:19
  Joseph: Tomorrow we're supposed to drive to New
• 54:21
  Joseph: Orleans. I don't know how we'll do that if
• 54:24
  Joseph: the car brakes don't work,
• 54:26
  Joseph: but I'm all packed and ready to go.
• 54:29
  Joseph: I'm very excited.
• 54:31
  Joseph: That was it. That was kind of how I wrote at
• 54:34
  Joseph: the time, and I actually enjoyed writing when
• 54:38
  Joseph: I knew no one would be reading that writing.
• 54:41
  Joseph: And I did a little bit every day.
• 54:44
  Joseph: When I eventually went to Northwestern
• 54:46
  Joseph: University to study, every single student was
• 54:49
  Joseph: required to take two writing classes as part
• 54:51
  Joseph: of our freshman curriculum,
• 54:54
  Joseph: and that helped me a lot.
• 54:55
  Joseph: I really felt like my writing improved,
• 54:58
  Joseph: and I also regained some of that confidence I
• 55:00
  Joseph: lost so early on in my life around writing.
• 55:03
  Joseph: And when I eventually went to the University
• 55:05
  Joseph: of Michigan a few years later to do my MBA,
• 55:07
  Joseph: we were all required to take a writing exam
• 55:09
  Joseph: and work with a professor on our business,
• 55:12
  Joseph: writing throughout various points in the
• 55:14
  Joseph: program, and that really made me feel like
• 55:17
  Joseph: writing was not only helpful,
• 55:19
  Joseph: but necessary to be able to communicate ideas
• 55:23
  Joseph: clearly, work effectively,
• 55:25
  Joseph: and even open doors.
• 55:27
  Joseph: Jump forward to the current day and I'd say
• 55:30
  Joseph: that I actually still struggle with writing.
• 55:32
  Joseph: I wouldn't say it's my forte compared to
• 55:34
  Joseph: public speaking or giving presentations on
• 55:36
  Joseph: stage. But even though I find it hard,
• 55:40
  Joseph: writing still forms a big and critical part
• 55:42
  Joseph: of the work I now do.
• 55:44
  Joseph: Shortly after I started my business in 2013,
• 55:47
  Joseph: I started doing some writing,
• 55:49
  Joseph: first contributing opinion articles to The
• 55:52
  Joseph: Drum, which is a marketing publication in the
• 55:54
  Joseph: UK. I reached out to one of the editors I met
• 55:57
  Joseph: at one of their conferences when I was a
• 55:59
  Joseph: marketer, and started writing articles about
• 56:01
  Joseph: career topics, mostly related to questions I
• 56:04
  Joseph: was regularly hearing from my one on one
• 56:06
  Joseph: clients at the time.
• 56:08
  Joseph: I then wrote my first post on my own blog at
• 56:11
  Joseph: joseph.co/blog in 2014 about Blue Monday.
• 56:16
  Joseph: Just sharing my observations about how no one
• 56:19
  Joseph: seemed to look happy riding the tube that
• 56:21
  Joseph: morning in London. And as I mentioned to
• 56:23
  Joseph: Scott, I wrote my first Medium article later
• 56:26
  Joseph: that year and in 2015 attempted to write for
• 56:29
  Joseph: Forbes. Got rejected by the editor there who
• 56:33
  Joseph: told me my articles weren't good enough.
• 56:37
  Joseph: Approached him again three years later,
• 56:40
  Joseph: after I'd done more writing,
• 56:42
  Joseph: and managed to get the green light from him
• 56:43
  Joseph: to become a contributing writer to Forbes in
• 56:46
  Joseph: 2021. I attempted to write a book about
• 56:48
  Joseph: career change, pitched the book to some
• 56:51
  Joseph: agents in New York.
• 56:53
  Joseph: I got rejected by all of them,
• 56:56
  Joseph: but I'm now working on another book on
• 56:59
  Joseph: personal branding, and I'm going to try
• 57:02
  Joseph: pitching it again this summer to see what
• 57:04
  Joseph: happens. I guess I'm sharing all this with
• 57:08
  Joseph: you, because if you're someone who has had
• 57:11
  Joseph: this lingering feeling that writing could be
• 57:15
  Joseph: good for you, or you've been meaning to do
• 57:18
  Joseph: more writing, but maybe you struggle with
• 57:21
  Joseph: finding the time for it,
• 57:22
  Joseph: or you don't feel like writing is your thing,
• 57:26
  Joseph: or you aren't sure how to get started.
• 57:28
  Joseph: I just want you to know that you do not have
• 57:32
  Joseph: to be a quote unquote good writer to write.
• 57:36
  Joseph: I certainly was not one when I began,
• 57:39
  Joseph: and I still don't feel like it's my strength.
• 57:42
  Joseph: Also, you may be reluctant to publicly share
• 57:45
  Joseph: your thoughts in writing.
• 57:47
  Joseph: Now, if you're one of those people who's not
• 57:49
  Joseph: allowed to write publicly due to the
• 57:51
  Joseph: sensitive nature of your job or because it's
• 57:53
  Joseph: prohibited in your work contract,
• 57:55
  Joseph: definitely do not break any rules of your
• 57:58
  Joseph: employment or do anything that would get you
• 58:00
  Joseph: into trouble, which can happen.
• 58:02
  Joseph: And you may have even seen in the news lately
• 58:04
  Joseph: in the tussle between some prominent tech
• 58:07
  Joseph: CEOs. Or you might just be hesitant to write
• 58:11
  Joseph: something publicly because you feel like
• 58:13
  Joseph: there's no point, especially in a world where
• 58:17
  Joseph: AI seems to be taking over and it's becoming
• 58:20
  Joseph: harder to tell what's written by humans and
• 58:23
  Joseph: what's been AI generated.
• 58:25
  Joseph: Now, on this point, I actually feel like
• 58:28
  Joseph: there is more reason for people like you to
• 58:31
  Joseph: share your uniquely human,
• 58:34
  Joseph: imperfect, and even sometimes emotional voice
• 58:39
  Joseph: with the world.
• 58:40
  Joseph: I really believe that everyone has
• 58:43
  Joseph: interesting, unique stories,
• 58:45
  Joseph: perspectives, and knowledge.
• 58:48
  Joseph: Getting those ideas down on paper,
• 58:50
  Joseph: even if it's for your eyes only in your own
• 58:52
  Joseph: private journal, is still a way of
• 58:55
  Joseph: synthesizing and clarifying your ideas.
• 58:59
  Joseph: And if you go a step further and share your
• 59:01
  Joseph: written thoughts with others beyond just a
• 59:03
  Joseph: short social media comment,
• 59:04
  Joseph: but instead as a longer individual reflection
• 59:07
  Joseph: or article, you can also make your own unique
• 59:10
  Joseph: contribution to a broader community.
• 59:12
  Joseph: And the good news is that these days,
• 59:15
  Joseph: there's way less friction involved with
• 59:18
  Joseph: digital writing and sharing your ideas with
• 59:20
  Joseph: the world. If you don't like typing long
• 59:23
  Joseph: strings of text, you can use voice dictation
• 59:25
  Joseph: built right into most devices these days.
• 59:28
  Joseph: If you get stuck on what topic to write
• 59:31
  Joseph: about, AI is great at brainstorming topics,
• 59:35
  Joseph: headlines, and even outlines to get you past
• 59:37
  Joseph: your writer's block. And if you don't want to
• 59:40
  Joseph: bother trying to create your own blog,
• 59:42
  Joseph: you can go to platforms specifically designed
• 59:45
  Joseph: for people who just want to write.
• 59:47
  Joseph: Like LinkedIn Publishing,
• 59:48
  Joseph: Substack, or of course,
• 59:50
  Joseph: Medium, which for over a decade now has been
• 59:54
  Joseph: and still is my platform of choice for long
• 59:57
  Joseph: form written content.
• 1:00:00
  Joseph: Remember, everyone out there has a story
• 1:00:02
  Joseph: inside them. You don't have to put a
• 1:00:05
  Joseph: groundbreaking article out there that goes
• 1:00:08
  Joseph: viral. You just have to be willing to share a
• 1:00:11
  Joseph: little bit of yourself with others.
• 1:00:14
  Joseph: And if you do, you might be surprised what
• 1:00:17
  Joseph: impact it can have on your professional
• 1:00:20
  Joseph: community, your career and your life.
• 1:00:24
  Joseph: And at the very least,
• 1:00:25
  Joseph: you might learn something about yourself
• 1:00:27
  Joseph: along the way. This takes me to a few quotes
• 1:00:30
  Joseph: from Dani Shapiro, author of Still Writing:
• 1:00:34
  Joseph: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life.
• 1:00:38
  Joseph: Everything you need to know about life can be
• 1:00:41
  Joseph: learned from a genuine and ongoing attempt to
• 1:00:44
  Joseph: write. It would be many years before I began
• 1:00:47
  Joseph: to understand that all of life is practice
• 1:00:49
  Joseph: writing, driving, hiking,
• 1:00:51
  Joseph: brushing teeth, packing lunchboxes,
• 1:00:53
  Joseph: making beds, cooking dinner,
• 1:00:54
  Joseph: making love, walking dogs,
• 1:00:56
  Joseph: even sleeping. We are always practicing,
• 1:01:00
  Joseph: only practicing.
• 1:01:02
  Joseph: Act as if you're a writer.
• 1:01:04
  Joseph: Sit down and begin.
• 1:01:05
  Joseph: Act as if you might just create something
• 1:01:08
  Joseph: beautiful. And by beautiful I mean something
• 1:01:11
  Joseph: authentic and universal.
• 1:01:13
  Joseph: Don't wait for anybody to tell you it's okay.
• 1:01:17
  Joseph: So my challenge to you is to start writing.
• 1:01:20
  Joseph: Or if it's easier, you can even dictate it
• 1:01:22
  Joseph: into your phone's notes app.
• 1:01:25
  Joseph: Don't worry about if, when,
• 1:01:27
  Joseph: or where you'll publish this.
• 1:01:29
  Joseph: Just think of it like a quick snapshot of
• 1:01:31
  Joseph: what's on your mind. Sort of like a one
• 1:01:34
  Joseph: paragraph journal entry.
• 1:01:36
  Joseph: It could be something interesting that
• 1:01:38
  Joseph: happened today or something you noticed,
• 1:01:41
  Joseph: something that bothered you,
• 1:01:43
  Joseph: something you're struggling with,
• 1:01:44
  Joseph: something you're working on or worried about
• 1:01:47
  Joseph: or excited about, or something you learned
• 1:01:51
  Joseph: about yourself. It doesn't have to be earth
• 1:01:53
  Joseph: shattering or revelatory,
• 1:01:55
  Joseph: but just something you want to capture in
• 1:01:57
  Joseph: writing. If you've got a question about
• 1:01:59
  Joseph: writing or career change you want me to
• 1:02:01
  Joseph: address on the show, or if you've got a
• 1:02:03
  Joseph: written piece you want to share with me,
• 1:02:05
  Joseph: I'd love to check it out.
• 1:02:06
  Joseph: So please send your article or Medium profile
• 1:02:09
  Joseph: to me at joseph@careerrelaunch.net.
• 1:02:13
  Joseph: You can also leave me a voicemail anytime
• 1:02:15
  Joseph: with your questions or comments at
• 1:02:17
  Joseph: careerrelaunch.net/111 where you can also
• 1:02:22
  Joseph: find a summary of my discussion with Scott.
• 1:02:24
  Joseph: Find a link to Scott's stories on Medium and
• 1:02:27
  Joseph: learn more about his perspectives on why
• 1:02:29
  Joseph: writing still has its place in the AI era.
• 1:02:33
  Joseph: Again, that's careerrelaunch.net/111.
• 1:02:37
  Joseph: Thanks so much for being part of the Career
• 1:02:39
  Joseph: Relaunch® community, and a very special
• 1:02:41
  Joseph: thanks again to Scott Lamb for sharing his
• 1:02:43
  Joseph: career story and writing insights with us
• 1:02:45
  Joseph: today from Brooklyn.
• 1:02:47
  Joseph: This episode was mixed by Liam Mackenzie.
• 1:02:49
  Joseph: Today's music was curated by Jonathan Renaldy
• 1:02:51
  Joseph: Poll, and the career relaunch theme song was
• 1:02:53
  Joseph: written and performed by Electrocardiogram.
• 1:02:56
  Joseph: In our next episode, I'll be sharing my
• 1:02:58
  Joseph: conversation with a part time McDonald's
• 1:03:00
  Joseph: employee turned receptionist turned
• 1:03:02
  Joseph: phlebotomist whom I met just up the street
• 1:03:05
  Joseph: from where I lived. I'm Joseph Liu and I'll
• 1:03:07
  Joseph: talk to you then.