Use this flowchart to make tough decisions easierPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Not to freak you out or anything, but were already 6.12% of our way through 2025Issue #252: birthright citizenship, God writes a novel, and giving yourself permission to put down the weightBy Harris SockelYoure way more resilient than you think, writes Mark Shrime, MD, PhD in one of the best stories Ive read recently about decision making, even when you make bad decisions.Weve touched on the art of deciding a few times in this newsletter. A quick recap:Every decision you make will be imperfect, so how you make decisions matters more than what you decide youll learn more by committing to something and seeing how it feels than sitting in a quiet room trying to assess everything perfectly.Humans tend to be loss-averse: We avoid decisions because were afraid of giving up what we have, even if what we stand to gain could serve us better over time.Beware of defaults! Adherence to the status quo is itself a decision, though were not trained to think of it as one.Enter: surgeon Shrime, author of Solving for Why: A Surgeons Journey to Discover the Transformative Power of PurposeChair of Surgery at Irelands Royal College of Surgeons, I imagine at least part of the curriculum involves decision-making. A surgeon must make split-second life-or-death decisions based on a combination of training, experience, and intuition. On Medium, Shrime extends those lessons into evergreen advice for all sorts of situations. He recommends setting a series of staggered deadlines instead of just one, for example. He advises letting your anxiety point you toward what you truly care about. And, a little gift for my indecisive brain: He draws decision-making flowcharts like this:Image credit: Mark Shrime, Its never the right time heres how to know when to act anywayYou can view the entire chart here. It culminates in a mathematical equation weighing your choices against your values. I tried it recently and while it wasnt easy, it forced me to write down my top three values (relevant to the decision) in one sentence each a decision-making step many of us skip. Worth bookmarkingFrom the archive: Genealogist Andre Kearns finds two of his great-great-great grandfathers mentioned in 150-year-old newspapers, and pens a tribute to how they fought for and benefited from birthright citizenship the right of anyone born on U.S. soil to become a citizen after the U.S. Civil War.Routine is a form of self-hypnosis Every time we abide our routine we put a stone in the path to the place we are trying to reach. Laura Van Den Berg (Fight Week)A reminder that writing is actually harder than creating the Earth, sea, sun, and stars. (Rachel Reyes) A dose of much-needed wisdomYoure not broken, and youre not hopeless. Youve just been carrying a load you didnt realize you could put down. Put down the things! Its almost Friday. (Paddy Murphy)

Why it took 37 years for the U.S. to ban Red 3Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Welcome backIssue #252: letting go of assumptions + self-imposed urgencyBy Harris SockelCandy corn. Pez. Maraschino cherries. Gummy wormsAll delicious and all typically contain Red Dye 3, aka erythrosine (via ancient Greek eruthrs, or red). The dye was banned by the FDA last week, though its been off shelves in California since last fall. Anything made with the dye before last week, though, can still be sold and manufacturers have two years to find alternative sources of red (or cut the color entirely).The FDA based its decision on a study from 37 years ago which found that rats who consume the dye are more likely to develop thyroid tumors than those who dont. Obvious question: Why the gigantic delay? Because the FDA wasnt petitioned to review this research until 2022, when the Center for Science in the Public Interest an advocacy group best-known for putting ingredient and calorie labels on food filed a petition. Three years later, after the petition wound its way through the FDAs public comment and review process, the ban is here.Dr. Jess Steier, a public health scientist whos unpacked raw milks health effects and research around child vaccination, breaks down what we do and dont know about the safety of food dyes. Essentially, rats developed tumors due to a hormone mechanism specific to male rats that doesnt exist in humans and no other animal studies have discovered any cancerous effects of these dyes. Yet, a one-line clause in a 1958 amendment to FDA law requires the agency to ban any ingredient shown to cause cancer in humans or animals. Its an abundance of caution situation. As Steier explains, the ban is based on a legal requirement from a time in history when analytical chemistry was way less sophisticated, its not based on new or particularly consequential safety concerns. TL;DR: You dont need to worry (that much) about all the red dye you or your kids may have been consuming pre-last week.My side quest, while researching all this: What about Red Dye 1 and 2? Who are they and where did they go? Well, Red 2 was banned in 1976 after the FDA could not rule out its link to cancer. And Red 1 was banned in 1960 for the same reason. My open tabs this morningA prompt to spark new perspectives: What if you removed your biggest assumption instead of your biggest constraint? (David Loewen)In 1981, Ronald Reagan chose to move his inauguration from the White Houses East portico to its West portico so he could face the National Mall and welcome a larger crowd every inauguration since 1981 has followed suit. Reagans second inauguration in 1985 was also the last to be held indoors for cold and wet weather, before Mondays. (Betsy Denson)Educator Torshie Torto, in Ghana, uses the Socratic method to dispel long-held homophobia and bigoted beliefs among her students: My goal wasnt to make them accept anything. I wanted them to question the hatred of gay people, not their existence. Some practical wisdomDo things fast. Things dont actually take much time (as measured by a stopwatch); resistance/procrastination does. Slow is fake. If no urgency exists, impose some. Nabeel Qureshi

Maybe what youre feeling is automation anxietyPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter4 min readJust now-- I swear to God a human wrote thisIssue #250: foraging, pickling, and dead husbands who haunt your dreamsEarly robots were charming. In 1956, artist Irving Block designed Robby the Robot for the movie Forbidden Planet. Robby had a dry wit, was designed to help humans and follow Isaac Asimovs three Laws of Robotics: A robot 1) may not injure a human being, 2) must obey human orders, and 3) must protect its own existence.Then robots started to learn. In 2011, two Jeopardy contestants with impressive winning streaks competed against Watson, an IBM computer. After Watson wiped the floor with them, Ken Jennings, a contestant who won 74 games by just using his squishy, carbon-based brain, wrote on his screen I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords in homage to a Simpsons episode in which a TV anchor welcomes new insect overlords. (Not for nothing, Robby the Robot looks suspiciously like a bug.)How did we get to a place where humans bow to robots on national television? In How to Survive Automation, Sam Brinson explains the trajectory. Early AI, also called symbolic AI, could do algebra, but it couldnt get a feel for tasks without a human programming each step. Then came deep learning. AI first learned to play Go by looking at past games; then it learned how to play when humans fed it the rules and let it play against itself; then it learned several other games like Chess and Atari games without being given rules at all. We just let it loose [and it] learned for [itself] what does what, Brinson writes. And now it kicks our ass, and the asses of its AI predecessors.And now it kicks our ass. Im not a fan of that sentence, because that makes it sound like robots are breaking the rules. Drones (flying robots) have gone to war over the last several decades, breaking Asimovs first rule. But its the second rule theyve really tossed out the window. We no longer flinch at the phrase the computer wont let me and instead just find workarounds.To wit: My insurance company canceled my umbrella policy because my father wasnt on my auto insurance. Apparently, the insurance robot decided that my dad was driving my car because he gets mail at my house. The thing is, my dad is dead. Luckily, a human customer service rep convinced the insurance robot that a dead person could still get mail. This was harder than it should have been, and it bugged me for days. I started to hear myself ask people whether we will ever escape the robots? Clearly, if I was asking this question, the robots were following rule number three just fine.You have automation anxiety, one of my smart friends said. Brinsons cure for this, at least for people afraid of losing their jobs, is to develop skills that complement machines instead of competing with them. He cites economist Tyler Cowen, who writes, Ever more people are starting to fall on one side of the divide [complement or compete] or the other. Thats why average is over.But, because I have a sense of humor, I went to Google to find even more advice. In an impressive move to protect its own existence (Rule #3), Google coughed up a BBC article that told me I should just lean into the idea of automation. But all is not lost: In an ultimate self-own, Google also led me to How to Survive a Robot Apocalypse which had some helpful tips. (Paint your door knob the same color as your door, go upstairs, stand on a table.)I laughed, which Im beginning to think is the only way out. A good place to start, if you want to laugh too: Kalle Georgievs story about robots taking over an office.Spoiler alert: They miss the humans. Im also readingMelanie Weird, who describes herself as that weird plant lady living in the wilderness of Appalachia explains that foraging is the antidote to our frantic lives. Foraging, she writes, teaches us to be still, to observe, and to reconnect with the moment were in. Among other things, Weird forages pretty purple mushrooms that she transforms into mushroom salt.Its easy to conflate purpose with your 95, but purpose is less about what you do than why you do it, as recruiter Dali Chabaane explains. If you notice yourself defining yourself by your title or place of work, ask: What brings me joy, regardless of recognition?As someone who recently lost a loved one, I was moved by Brandy Nicole Hammocks story about her deceased husband showing up in her dreams. I loved the plot of it all; Im sure there was a deeper meaning to each dream, but that wasnt what held my interest. I just wanted to see when her husband would show up next. Your daily dose of practical wisdomTrust me on this: Its very fun to pickle things, because it only requires a very simple equation. A vegetable + vinegar + salt or sugar or both + aromatics (or not!). From the archives, our cup runneth over with Tenderlys column In a Pickle by Laura Vincent who serves up recipes for pickled eggplant, pickled scallions and pickled apples and pears.

The nine-word problem of civil rights discoursePublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Its MLK Jr. Day and Inauguration Day today here in the U.S. so were off today, but we have a brief issue for you while were out.Issue #249: autofiction, Carters legacy, and making good memoriesMatthew Teutsch, director of the Lillian E. Smith Center at Georgias Piedmont University, teaches college students about the U.S. civil rights movement. His courses have taken various forms, and hes posted several syllabi on Medium: Theres a general survey featuring essays by James Baldwin and speeches by activist Fannie Lou Hamer; another course specifically focused on memoirs by women in the civil rights movement; and a third course (which I personally would love to take) on comic book monsters created by Black and Indigenous authors, and the ways those monsters express various forms of protest, progress, and resistance.Teutschs goal is to solve the nine-word problem of civil rights discourse:via the graphic novel MarchThis isnt just a problem for civil rights education. Its a problem for all of history. Over time, political and cultural movements are flattened until they become stories that lack nuance, inner conflict, and humanity. Three-dimensional people become avatars for ideologies. And lesser-known figures vanish from the narrative entirely.I asked Teutsch to recommend just one primary source, out of all his syllabi, for anyone who wants to deepen their understanding of U.S. history. He emailed me back: I would recommend Lillian Smiths Killers of the Dream, which influenced King and which was reissued during the movement. Here is something I [wrote] about their friendship at the African American Intellectual History Society.Lillian E. Smith, if youre unaware, was a close friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. The friendship started when Smith sent King an unsolicited letter praising his efforts at peaceful protest, the mid-20th-centurys version of a cold email. By that point, Smith had written the novel Strange Fruit (published in 1944, it was briefly banned from the U.S. postal service because it features an interracial romance). At the time, she was one of the first white women in the South vehemently and vocally opposing racial segregation.Their friendship lasted until Smiths death in 1966. King wrote to her family to say: She was one of the brightest stars in the human firmament. Probably no southerner seared the conscience of white southerners on the question of racial injustice than Lillian Smith. Harris Sockel Also todayIf youre a fiction reader (or writer), I recommend this essay by Brandon Taylor examining a popular subgenre of contemporary first-person novels: tales told by coolly removed, internet-addicted narrators who seem to feel nothing but witness everything. (Sweater Weather)One of the late Jimmy Carters oft-overlooked career milestones: signing a 1980 executive order to fund historically Black colleges and universities. (Quintessa L. Williams) Some practical wisdomOne question to ask yourself if youre feeling vaguely dissatisfied with life: What memories do I want to make? Am I making them? (Miyah Byrd)

What the end of Metas moderation meansPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Today is Friday, January 17th. Theres only one other Friday the 17th in 2025, happening in October.Issue #248: moderation, small language models, David Lynch, and post-death password sharingMetas announcement last week that they were gutting their fact-checking efforts and changing their approach to moderation on their platforms caught people by surprise. Meta (and Mark Zuckerbergs) framing for the changes was about free speech; technology and social media scholar Danah Boyd sees the move as one that simply puts more of Metas users in harms way (warning: strong language in there). This isnt about free speech, she writes on Medium. Its about allowing some people to harm others through vitriol and providing the tools of amplification to help them.Moderation and Trust & Safety teams exist at tech companies for myriad reasons, but prime among them is keeping their users safe or at least, that used to be the case. As Ryan Broderick points out in Garbage Day, Meta giving up means that their social networks will immediately fill up with hatred and harassment. but Meta is betting that the average user wont care or notice.As worrying as Metas moves are for its own users (and for their own employees, as they began dismantling their internal DEI efforts last week as well), I also fear what their impact will be on the larger industry. Users should expect more protections, not less; even just from a purely bloodless business perspective, telling your users to expect more harmful content seems short-sighted? I dont know anyone who wakes up thinking theyd like more hate in their daily social media diet. Mediums approach to moderation isnt changing, by the way; our platform rules and the way we implement them is core to how the company works.If this all makes you think I need to delete Facebook, just know it will take ~20 steps and at least a month, according to UX designer Robert Stribley, who walks through the process for those interested.What else were readingWhats coming next in the world of AI? Look for the growth of small language models trained on much smaller, more specific datasets than their large cousins says machine learning engineer Sergei Savvov. (Towards Data Science)Facebooks former VP of Global Communications Caryn Marooney shares a useful framework for big communications moments, like, say, when you have difficult news to share: S.W.I.M.S: Strategy Broad strategy or pivotW: Why Why now, why youI: In Action Specific, measurable actionsM: Mistakes Mistakes will happenFrom the archiveThe Straight Story 25 Years Later Lynchs winding road to the heartIf youre a David Lynch fan, this retrospective review of his film The Straight Story is worth revisiting. Film reviewer Lance Li makes a case for it being among Lynchs best films; despite not bearing a lot of his hallmark bizarre touches, it shows the depth of Lynchs personal connection to his art. The film could as easily as well be on par with a TV melodrama, but whenever it does seem like its gonna preach, Li writes, it does exactly the opposite to get across the same message.Your daily dose of practical wisdom about digital estate planningHeres the least fun yet most important life tip Ive seen recently: You need to have a strategy for what happens to your online accounts if you suddenly die, and that means starting with a password-sharing plan on a service like 1Password. (Jeffery Smith)

Why TikTokers are flocking to XiaohongshuPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- One of my lightly held 2025 resolutions is to stop picking up my phone when I dont know what to do with my handsIssue #247: Excalidraw, luck, and teaEven if two products do the exact same thing like enabling you to upload 90-second videos or publish 1,000-word blog posts theyre different. They have different histories, communities, and vibes. They have different forms of cultural baggage. Using each of them says something different about you.On Medium, UX writer Daley Wilhelm believes vibes are one of the main reasons why TikTok users are downloading Xiaohongshu, a 13-year-old Chinese app thats kind of like TikTok + Pinterest + Etsy, rather than migrating to more established platforms like Instagram or YouTube Shorts. Quick background: As of this writing (Wednesday evening) it looks like the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold an upcoming ban on TikTok. The U.S. government fears ByteDance, TikToks owner, may use the apps recommendations algorithm for geopolitical gain. (I havent seen convincing evidence of this, though Ive seen several jokes.) The ban will likely go into effect this Sunday, meaning TikTok may disappear from the App Store or shut down completely.So, where will its 170 million users in the U.S. go?Substacks CEO announced a $25,000 TikTok Liberation Prize, which hell award to anyone who can start a viral trend convincing TikTokers to jump ship for Substack. But most of the momentum is happening on Xiaohongshu, known to most English speakers as RedNote. Over 500,000 TikTokers created accounts as a form of tongue-in-cheek (?) protest. (I dont know who was the first migrant, but its now #1 in the App Store.)Theres a vibes element to this, too. As Wilhelm explains, Xiaohongshu is the best available approximation of TikToks rambunctious, young, vaguely illicit chaotic energy (at least from Americans point of view). Instagram, Threads, and YouTube Shorts are sanitized, professionalized platforms for upstanding citizens with reputations to maintain. Xiaohongshu harbors more of what TikToks Gen Z userbase craves: authentic snippets of life rather than skits devised by professionals. And, like TikTok, its recommendations are highly personalized based on your interests (instead of your network). Its messy and serendipitous many isolated communities instead of a monolith. And its what TikTok refugees want, which aligns with other cultural trends happening now: Decentralized, fragmented, indie, and chaotic forms of culture are overtaking more coherent ones (for better and for worse at the same time). Harris SockelWhat else were readingJacob Bennett, backend engineer at Medium, returns with his annual list of the top 5 paid subscriptions that help him get work done. One tool Bennett recommends that I want to start using this year? Excalidraw, a free way to create maps and diagrams in an endearing hand-drawn style.An unusually wet winter in LA spawned tall grasses, which dried out during last years exceptionally dry summer leading to larger than normal piles of, essentially, tinder. The result: peak wildfire conditions. (Ricky Lanusse)A detail from a delightful and informative history of tea: Black teas are more popular globally than green or red because theyre fully oxidized, meaning they can travel further without going bad. (Just Norah)Your daily dose of practical wisdomLuck is mostly code for being open to opportunities and trusting your gut which you can train. Psychology professor Richard Wiseman recommends journaling about (a) good things that might happen and (b) bad things that used to happen but no longer do. (Kelly Eden)

The inevitable future of self-driving carsPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Hello and welcome backIssue #251: wildfires, knives, and lesser-known reading recsLate last year, I was visiting one of my favorite places on Earth: Dolores Park in San Francisco at golden hour. It was starting to get cold and the sky was turning purple, which meant Id need a ride home. You have to take a Waymo, one of my friends said, referring to a brand of self-driving car. You cant visit SF without doing that at least once.Five minutes later, a signature white Jaguar pulled up and drove right past me. The same thing happened to Chris Yanda on Medium, who chased his Waymo around a corner when it got confused. Mine stopped 10 feet away, down a hill. I got in, listened to the prerecorded instructions (fasten my seatbelt, dont touch the steering wheel, stay calm) and we were off.It felt like a very slow version of the tilt-a-whirl at Dorney Park but I arrived safely at my destination. (There was a kerfuffle right after I got out, when the Jaguar backed up to turn around, almost hitting me, but besides that it was uneventful.)At the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week, the largest exhibitions featured self-driving cars. Manufacturers like Waymo (the leader in this space, owned by Googles parent company, Alphabet) and upstart competitors like Zoox (owned by Amazon) were gearing up for what theyre hoping is an inflection point in self-driving technology. Since last spring, anyone has been able to hail robotaxis in San Francisco. Theyre already ferrying passengers around LA, Phoenix, Miami, and Austin. This year, theyll do the same in Tokyo. The rollout has been bumpy a car drove one person in endless circles, some honk at each other all night, and the safety implications are still unclear but, personally, when I was sitting in that car the main thing I felt was inevitability.Vincent Vanhoucke, an engineer at Waymo, writes: Within the first couple of rides, as the novelty inevitably fades, youre left with a deep sense that this is how personal transport ought to be. I didnt reach that point, but if youve ever been in a self-driving car did you?As with any new technology, whats most interesting arent the first-order effects but the unintended second- and third-order ones. Also on Medium, Nicholas Moryl peers into the future, imagining cars that may get radically smaller when they no longer need steering wheels or brakes. And maybe, 100 years from now, humans driving cars will be like humans riding horses: rare, expensive, and mostly done for fun in dedicated spaces. Harris Sockel Also today17 years ago, one writer and her family lost their home in San Diegos Witch Creek Fire. On Medium, in one of the most moving and insightful stories about home loss Ive ever read, she explains: Being part of a mass wildfire draws in a lot of opinions on your grief You feel the need to caveat that you know a home is just stuff and a life is not replaceable, but it really isnt just stuff. It is the story of your life.Poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert who just released a new book has shared exhaustive reading lists on Medium every year for the last decade. This years list features under-the-radar titles like Manuel Puigs Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages (1982), a novel written almost entirely in dialogue, and Mollie Panter-Downes One Fine Day (1947) which is literally just the story of one uneventful day. I love the honesty in these reviews. Gabbert isnt trying to sell you anything, and shes one of the most adventurous readers I know.Dont buy a knife set. Just buy one great chefs knife. Mark Laflamme, who wasted $2,000 in his quest for cutlery perfection, recommends the Victorinox 9-inch Fibrox Pro Chefs Knife. Its $60. Your daily dose of practical wisdomCynicism is easy. Building is hard, but worth it. (JA Westenberg)

You can teach others how to respect your timePublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Somehow, were (almost) halfway through JanuaryIssue #246: making a mobile game, empathy v. accountability, and a procrastination tipA few of my coworkers do this chaotic thing at the beginning of the year: They delete every recurring meeting and repopulate their calendars gradually, only reinstating what they actually need.Investor Hunter Walk tried an extreme version of this in 2020 he razed every single thing on his calendar, went full scorched-earth with his obligations, and asked himself: What do I really care about? It was his way to reassess his time, sure, but also an attempt to save money. A few years ago, Shopify created a meeting cost calculator that adds every attendees hourly compensation and multiplies it by a meetings length. This is very handwavey, but according to this calculator, the average 30-minute meeting between three people costs between $700 and $1,600 (if theres an exec in the meeting, its cost balloons to at least $2K).That investment can be worth it, of course! But as product leader Julia Harrison writes, a meeting is most useful if it has a goal and if everyone in the meeting is necessary to reach that goal. You know the meetings over not when the clock tells you so, but when youve reached it.Your goal doesnt need to be a doc or a Gantt chart, either. It can just be a feeling. Former Microsoft VP Steven Sinofsky, who led the Windows and Office teams in the 90s and aughts, writes: The best meetings I remember are the ones where our team got a little closer and more connected and I remember that feeling more than I remember the specifics of what we talked about.Either way, if youre not essential to whatever a meeting is trying to accomplish, you can not go! (Its so hard for me to say no to things, but Im really trying to do this more in 2025.) Guard your calendar like its your wallet, writes executive recruiter Brian Fink. The uncomfortable truth, he explains, is that people will treat you the way you treat yourself and theyll only value your time as much (or as little) as you value it. Harris SockelWere also readingSoftware engineer Anastasia Laczko spent two years building a new match-three mobile game that lets you create delicious animated sandwiches. She learned (a) you must ruthlessly cut scope wherever possible (her original idea was a multiplayer game, but that proved way too ambitious), and (b) theres nothing as satisfying as seeing your friends and family fall in love with whatever youve created (her mom adores the game!).Technical team lead Victoria Corindi: Empathy without accountability is enabling. Accountability without empathy is cruelty. The real challenge is finding the balance between the two.In the 1940s, a married team of psychologists found that, regardless of their race, children between ages 3 and 7 felt more positively about white dolls than dolls of color (i.e. they were more likely to label white dolls nice or beautiful). Reflecting on that study and her own experience growing up without seeing herself in most of the dolls around her, writer Osi I. gifts every child in her daughters class a Black doll, writing: the gift was simply a very small gesture of exposure that may subtly heighten their consciousness, increase their understanding of and connection to others and help them celebrate the ways in which we are all beautifully human.Your daily dose of practical wisdomIf youre procrastinating, its probably because you dont want to lose something in exchange for moving forward. (Bruno Guardia)

Join us for an Academics HourOn January 29, were holding an event for academics, scholars, and students to learn about writing on MediumPublished inThe Medium Blog3 min readJust now--On Wednesday, January 29th from 121pm ET (910am PT), were holding a free webinar for anyone interested in learning more about academic and scholarly writing on Medium. Heres the link to RSVP!Event overviewThe event will be a panel discussion with three experts in academic/scholarly fields: Carin-Isabel Knoop, Rebecca Ruth Gould, PhD, and Enrique Dans. Facilitated by our VP of Content Scott Lamb, the webinar will feature our panelists discussing the ways they use Medium, demonstrating how they developed their favorite (and most successful) stories on the platform, and sharing tips for others looking to mirror their success. Attendees can submit questions for the panelists during the event and afterward will receive resources to optimize their academic/scholarly work on Medium.Who should attendThis event is open to all! Its designed for:Professors and instructors who are interested in sharing their work and ideas through writing onlinePh.D. students who want to learn about how writing on Medium can impact their career pathCommunications staff at universities who want to learn about how to use Medium as a publishing toolAbout the panelistsCarin-Isabel KnoopCarin-Isabel Knoop leads the Harvard Business Schools Case Research & Writing Group, which has supported the development of over 3,000 course materials primarily field cases on organizations and managers worldwide. Her extensive exposure to their challenges inspired her to explore ways to support them and those they lead, starting with co-authoring Compassionate Management of Mental Health in the Modern Workplace (Springer, 2018) and numerous articles on Medium. Beyond her writing, Carin-Isabel is a sought-after speaker on mental health, workplace well-being, and leadership. Her multicultural background informs her mission to create accessible, impactful educational experiences for global audiences.Rebecca Ruth GouldRebecca Ruth Gould, PhD (Professor of Comparative Poetics and Global Politics, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) is the editor of the publication Global Literary Theory on Medium. She examines how poetry relates to politics on and off Medium. Her expertise focuses on Middle Eastern literatures, and her most recent books are Erasing Palestine (2023) and The Persian Prison Poem (2021).Enrique DansEnrique Dans studies the effects of technology innovation on people, companies and society (writing in Spanish at enriquedans.com since 2003). Hes taught Innovation at IE Business School since 1990, and now, is hacking education as Senior Advisor for Digital Transformation at IE University, BSc (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela), MBA (Instituto de Empresa) and Ph.D. in Management Information Systems (UCLA).More informationTo learn more about academic and scholarly writing on Medium, check out An introduction to academic writing on Medium and How to publish your academic writing on Medium.

A dispatch from Los AngelesPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter4 min readJust now-- Were back with the Medium NewsletterIssue #244: Louise Bourgeois, imperfect information, and the best outdoor photography gearMy philosophy professor once tried to help me understand Kants theory of the sublime. Its that feeling when youre inside a house during a raging storm, he said, rolling a cigarette. (It was 1992 and students and faculty still bummed smokes off each other.) You get that tingly feeling in your spine because you imagine the danger, but youre ultimately safe because youre inside. He took a drag. If you went outside into the storm, you would just feel fear. The sublime depends on being safe.On Tuesday night in Los Angeles, where I grew up and have lived for the last 21 years after a stint on the east coast, it was supposed to be just a wind storm. With an increased risk of fire, sure, but Angelenos hear that all the time. I left work early so I could climb into bed with the dog and listen to the Santa Anas rage outside. This is always a rush, just like the professor said.Needless to say, this didnt last. I live in Silverlake, and am safe as I write this, even though there are five fires still burning. Friends from out of state ask what happened, but I know as much as they do. I dont leave the house because the air is heavy with ash and Im afraid I wont be able to rescue my dog if my neighborhood goes up in smoke. I too get the news by toggling between screens, and see the same images: smoldering ground, lifeguard towers on fire, abandoned BMWs.What I do know: Somehow, a brushfire started in the Palisades, and unprecedented winds made it impossible to contain. Then there was this puzzle: The city had enough water, but not enough water pressure to move it uphill (with me?) resulting in dry hydrants. The Eaton Canyon fire, which spread to Altadena and beyond, may have been caused by an electrical tower that caught on fire. A few years ago, SoCal Edison, which serves Altadena, had to cough up a big settlement after the Woolsey and Thomas fires and it will be, to put it mildly, annoying if it turns out they didnt learn anything from that.On Tuesday night my friend from Altadena called. I think I should leave, she said, in an eerily calm way. By Wednesday morning her house had burned down. Then another friends house burned down. Then a third. The Reel Inn, where I would get fish and beer after hiking in the Santa Monica mountains, is gone.Now, I feel something I cant describe, and its not the sublime. (Where are those cigarette-rolling philosophy professors when you need them?) Its a mix of horror, fear, empathy, a large amount of gratitude that Im safe and an equal amount of guilt. How are you? a friend texted from New York. I dont know what this feeling is, I wrote back.In between texting friends about all the places that burned down (Pali High is gone, I texted my Hami High friends), I stumbled upon this story by Luthfi Abdillah. He describes his relationship to a cumulonimbus, an SAT word for a menacing looking storm cloud. He (unlike me) succeeds in articulating a feeling that seems to have no name, a feeling in relation to something wild, something uncontrollable, something wondrous, writing the cloud forced me to slow my vehicle, turning my internal monologue into a soundtrack for the journey[a cumulonimbus] like all of natures elements, has its own way of being beautiful.Im not saying these fires are beautiful. They are not. What I grapple with is how thin the line between beauty and destruction seems these days, making it harder to get that familiar rush from the outside world. What are your thoughts?Also worth readingAs someone who struggles with writers block and would sometimes rather do a deep clean of the sink than write, I loved this story from the archives by Emily Sandiford about the artist Louise Bourgeois. Writers can learn a lot from her process (be bold, see the lighter side, respect the process). I especially loved her refusal to limit herself: She never committed to a single movement, and resisted narratives about herself constructed by othersSpeaking of the sublime, these photos of a sailing trip to St. Vincent and the Grenadines by Cat at life+wild capture it for me. Orange and soot-colored skies over dark water, double-rainbows and neon pink clouds are a good reminder not only that nature continues to offer up a daily overdose of beauty, but that Medium is also the place to share your visual art, especially photography.Your daily dose of practical wisdomIf you too want to get out and document our wild, wild world (but stay safe please!) Derrick Story has some practical tips on choosing the best outdoor photography gear for bad weather. Two lesser-known brands that are built for the outdoors: Olympus and Pentax. They are tough, and they have great glass.

Listening to someone is not the same as agreeing with themPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Be safe this weekendIssue #243: literary rejections, good storytelling, and unconscious envyIm guessing some of you saw this, but: Yesterday, at former U.S. President Jimmy Carters funeral, Barack Obama was seated next to Donald Trump. They were in the second row, behind Kamala Harris and surrounded by all 5 living U.S. presidents.The history of animosity between these two goes back three election cycles, and its not pretty. In 2012, Trump tweeted that Obamas birth certificate was fraudulent (its not). While campaigning in 2016, he referred to Obama as ignorant, a disaster, and the founder of ISIS. And recently, Obama finished a campaign tour for Kamala Harris presidential candidacy in which he argued that Trumps approach to politics is divisive and would be dangerous for the U.S. Its not an exaggeration to say their political careers have been partially built on tearing each other down, or at least positioning themselves as the better alternative.Yet, they seemed to get along fine yesterday. Maybe even more than fine. Trump told a joke (?) and Obama laughed. Obama whispered something back to him later in the ceremony.Image credit: CSPANThis made news. It surprised people. Some read the moment as hypocritical or sinister in some way, evidence that Americas leaders are unprincipled. Thats one take. A more positive perspective is that basic humanity transcends politics, which is actually pretty refreshing (to me, at least) right now, when everything from raging wildfires to private companies content moderation policies are immediately politicized to score Internet Points. Yes, its normal to be cordial toward your seatmate at a funeral. This shouldnt be controversial? Funerals are reminders that, no matter who youre dunking on today, no matter what power or money youve won or lost, our time here is short and most of this will be forgotten.(Small caveat to note the event was not grudge-less! Karen Pence and George W. Bush apparently both refused to shake Donald Trumps hand, though Bush did give Obama an amusing belly tap at one point.)Remember theres a time and place to disagree, wrote Saul Austerlitz on Medium a few years ago, in a story about how to talk to someone whos opinions you cant stand. Listening, even laughing with someone, is not the same as agreeing with them. Maybe thats a useful distinction to take with us into the weekend. Harris SockelWhat else were readingThe only way to get better is to fail first which, in YA author Dr. Casey Lawrences case, means facing 100 literary rejections last year (and celebrating them).The defining elements of great novels specificity, conflict, characters are the same ones that uplevel any type of communication, from company presentations to emails to strategy docs. Get yourself a hero and something they believe in, even if its just for your company all-hands. (Amy Widdowson, Mediums VP of Comms)Gaming historian Felipe Pepe traces the gentrification of video game history, and how not everyone grew up with N64 and Pokemon. Its less about the erasure of individual games than ways of playing (and interacting with people) like gaming in public at internet cafes as an alternative to exclusively playing at home. Your daily dose of practical wisdomSometimes, irritation is a form of unconscious envy. (J Snyder Art)

Why weve suspended Partner Program accounts this weekAddressing response spam and abuse to make the Partner Program better for writers and readers, right now.Published inThe Medium Blog4 min readJust now--Image created by Jason CombsAs weve written here before, part of being a platform is dealing with spam and fraud. Yes, were building a place where anyone can share their knowledge, wisdom, and experience, and our goal is to deepen our collective understanding of the world through the power of stories. But we also know any platform is subject to a wide range of behavior.Perhaps recently youve logged in to Medium only to encounter a sea of responses like these on a story:A screenshot of responses from a recent Medium post.Obviously, responses like that arent what we set out to make happen with Medium. Its not why I get out of bed in the morning, or why anyone on our small but mighty team puts in the time they do. I hate seeing thoughtless comments like this on my writing here, frankly, or on your writing, or on anyones writing. We deserve better.But these responses are especially damaging when they are organized in order to misuse our Partner Program and take earnings from other writers. And theyre only one form of behavior trying to extract money through deceptive content weve also seen a massive recent uptick in low-quality, AI-generated posts behind the paywall, and coordinated activity like fake accounts created by a single person in order to engage with paywalled posts to generate earnings, and more.Weve heard your feedback and we see it ourselves, and we dont like it. This isnt the way to a better internet. Its worth pointing out this isnt limited to Medium; platforms everywhere are struggling with these challenges. So while this issue isnt unique to Medium and we cant control what people do, we can control how we respond and what measures we take to protect our community.Which is why we are taking bigger, more aggressive steps to prevent this kind of abuse of the Partner Program. This week, weve started suspending accounts we find engaged in this kind of non-genuine activity engagement circles, clap-for-clap rings, writers leaving hundreds of no-value responses in the hopes theyll help boost their earnings, and more.What is non-genuine engagement? We do not allow the following behaviors:Creating multiple accounts to engage with yourself, and generate earningsUsing responses solely to drive attention to your stories with the intention of creating reciprocal earningsWriting responses, clapping, following, or highlighting solely to generate earningsUsing AI-generated content to earn money for stories and responses in the Partner ProgramIn addition to suspending accounts weve found engaging in this behavior, weve made some tweaks to the way earnings are calculated to better reward genuine behavior and discourage gaming. Were making these changes to protect the writers and readers of the Medium community. As always we are and will continue to tune the Partner Program earnings calculations to make sure were rewarding great content from genuine writers.These are changes we can make today that we think will be effective in ensuring the most money goes to the most genuine writers. And well continue to take whatever steps are necessary to protect the health of the ecosystem we are trying to build. We know spam and fraud will continue to exist, and well continually come up with new and better ways to keep them out of your experience on Medium.If your account was suspended, I hope this message will be clear to you. The Medium Partner Program is designed to support thoughtful, compelling writing by sharing earnings with authors. It is not designed to support engagement rings organizing around generating passive income by encouraging non-genuine engagement. That is not what we want our members subscriptions to support, and it is not what our members want to pay for. As a platform, we reserve the right to allocate the money towards writing that makes Medium valuable to our members.If youre one of the vast majority of Medium writers who are acting in good faith, you might be asking whether you need to be concerned about your own account. The clearest answer is no write your best stories and engage authentically. As our Support team says, remember that Medium is human-first, and human behaviors are your path to success:H Hacks dont work: There are no shortcuts to quality and successU Use your own words: Dont use AI or plagiarism in your storiesM Make an effort: Be thoughtful and intentional in all your writingA Authentic engagement only: Dont engage just to earn or drive attentionN No exceptions: All accounts are held to these standardsThank you to all the writers sharing authentic stories and making Medium the great home for human stories and writing that it is today. And thanks to readers for the stories and actions youve flagged to our support team, and the feedback youve sent in. Were trying to make Medium better for you, and hope these steps are taking us all in a better direction.

Dont wait until you lose everything to appreciate what you havePublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Hello againIssue #242: wildfire policy, vibe curators, and optimizing for understandingIm writing this one day before youll receive it (Wednesday morning), and I just woke up to photos and videos of the Pacific Palisades fire one of three fires burning in and around Los Angeles. At least 30,000 people were forced to evacuate so far. More than 1,000 homes and businesses were destroyed. Footage of the Santa Monica beach, featuring a few brave souls walking in the foreground, look unreal to me. But theyre real.A friend just texted me a photo of the sky above their Silver Lake home: Its eerily gray though the photo was taken at 8 a.m. Were writing a newsletter about this, I text back. Shes safely working from home and part of a group chat with native Angelinos. Theyre chronicling restaurants and schools lost to the fire. At least one of her friends homes burned down. Find something about losing everything, she replies.33 years ago, during the Oakland Firestorm of 1991, Roger Magoulas house burned down. He decided to rebuild instead of move. After decades spent processing that loss and the rebuilding effort, he took to Medium to explain how it changed him and what hed recommend to those in a similar position. Above all, he advises patience: The impulse to start over ASAP is so strong, but the decisions you make have a long shadow. You will make mistakes, thats inevitable, your goal is to avoid silly missteps.And heres a story by Skylar Whitney, who evacuated Jasper, Alberta, along with 25,000 others last August after two wildfires erupted in a national park. It became one of the most expensive natural disasters in Canadas history, and the rebuilding process will take years. Whitney takes the long view: This is the worst fire Jasper has seen in 100 years. But the regrowth that comes from it will be absolutely beautiful. [] if this has made me realize anything, its that Jasper is my home, and Im not going to abandon it.If youre in LA, be safe. Harris Sockel Also worth readingIn 2021, investor Gabe Kleinman (formerly of Obvious Corp., Mediums early parent company) argued that Californias megafires are solvable if (a) state legislators allocate more of their budgets to forest management, and (b) federal and state agencies become more diligent about reducing wildforest biomass via prescribed burns and strategic thinning.Hanif Abdurraqib poet, essayist, and music critic listened to 825 hours of new music last year and curated his top ~7.5%, featuring ~20 indie and lesser-known EPs and mixtapes worth bookmarking.Old songs are more popular than new ones. The top 10 highest-grossing films of 2024 are all remakes of existing intellectual property. Its easy to believe culture is stagnating, but maybe we just cant see the pockets of innovation? Internet archaeologist Katherine Dee writes: Creating mood boards on Pinterest or curating aesthetics on TikTok are evolving art forms, too. Constructing an atmosphere, or vibe, through images and sounds, is itself a form of storytelling, one thats been woefully misunderstood and even undermined as shallow. Your daily dose of practical wisdomIf youre consistently disagreeing with someone, its probably because your priorities are different. Youre optimizing for different things. When you understand what someone else is optimizing for, writes Radical Candor author Kim Scott, its easier to respect their perspective, even if you dont agree with it.

You cant change one behavior without changing anotherPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Its Wednesday, and were 2% of our way through 2025Issue #241: salt, Jimmy Carter, and the Golden GlobesOn Friday, I saw Heretic with a friend (Hugh Grant is perfectly cast, just likable enough to be an unexpectedly three-dimensional villain) and then we walked a few blocks to a nearby bar. I didnt think I was going to do Dry January, but earlier that day the U.S. Surgeon General had called for cigarette-box-style cancer warnings on alcoholic beverages. His office had published a report explaining that even if youre drinking at moderate or low levels (the classic glass of wine with dinner), alcohol increases your risk of seven types of cancer significantly.Im pretty risk-averse, so I got a mocktail.The first issue of this newsletter we ever sent focused on Dry January, which originated as a way for the Finnish government to save money during World War II. In that issue, we featured one writer, David Grover, who used this tradition as a way to jumpstart a virtuous cycle in his life. Cutting out beer gave him more energy, which spurred more change, like losing weight and cutting out sugar. Hence the principle of starting small with any big shift youd like to make.His experience underlines a core, magical truth: You cant change one behavior without unintentionally changing others. In one of my favorite Medium posts (ever?) Edith Zimmerman illustrates her first year sober in cross-hatched black-and-white line drawings and describes how her whole universe got brighter when she stopped drinking wine. She started knitting. She started waking up buoyant and happy. She realized wine may have just been a shortcut to relationships and behaviors she could have gotten in other ways that didnt make her feel bad:Image credit: Edith Zimmerman, My First Year SoberBut everyones different. Everyone has their own relationship to risk, their body, ethanol, the U.S. Surgeon General, and change. In one of the most-read stories of 2024, cultural anthropologist Karolina Kozmana says something most Dry January enthusiasts dont have the guts to say: not drinking also changes other peoples behavior, and (in Kozmanas experience) it can make socializing less pleasant when (a) people think youre judging them, or (b) you suspect they think youre judging them (even if youre not!). The social side effects of abstinence arent always good, Kozmana argues, even if the health benefits are clear.In other words, there are unintended side effects to every choice we make. May we all choose our side effects wisely this year. Harris Sockel Also worth readingThe FDA recommends the average adult consume less than 1 teaspoon of salt per day, but as Jacob Waalk discovered, research supporting that prescription is inconsistent at best. (Also, its a nearly impossible guideline to follow if youre an adult human who likes your food to taste like something.) Whats more important than sodium intake alone is the ratio of sodium to potassium; you run a risk of hypertension when you eat lots of salt without a proportionate amount of potassium. (Even thats an oversimplification. Read Waalks story for more nuance.)Billy Howard photographed the late U.S. President Jimmy Carter for 35 years. He remembers Carter as a man with an easy smile and a quiet gravitas. (Carter is also the only former U.S. President to win a Nobel Peace Prize, partially because he helped broker a treaty between Egypt and Israel.)Anora, a movie about a stripper who marries a Russian oligarch, was nominated for five Golden Globes and won zero. Jessicah Lahitou thinks she knows why: Not one moment in this entire film surprised or challenged, other than the insistence on returning to strip scenes and keeping Ani in various states of undress at almost all times. Your daily dose of practical wisdom: on decision-makingThe only bad decision you can make is one you didnt think through and cant explain. (Noa Ganot)

Creativity is the art of making mistakesPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Welcome back to the Medium Newsletter (its so good to be back!)Issue #240: who the Pope would play in Baldurs Gate 3 and a good reason to read moreWhat does the phrase getting out of your comfort zone really mean, especially when it pertains to writing?When you stretch your limits, you redefine comfort, says Cara J. Stevens for The Writing Cooperative. What once scared you becomes part of your new normal. She explains how the real benefit goes beyond just learning a new skill. You expand your tolerance for discomfort and develop grit the real star of the show.To find what to actually do to grow, Stevens suggests trying new uncomfy ways to use your skills rather than just doing more of the same. Here are a few ways to turn a resolution of writing more into activities that may feel unsafe or new (for now):Try writing a story that makes you uncomfortable: Every time you write the thing that scares you, you become more of the writer you want to be.Submit your work to a Medium publication: Submitting your work feels scary because it opens the door to rejection. But rejection is a sign youre trying.Write a pitch for your favorite magazine or local newspaper: Dont just brainstorm within your usual writing lane. Challenge yourself to think up ideas that feel different, bigger, or bolder than your usual work.Of course, doing something new means youre signing yourself up for blunders. In The essential art of making mistakes, James Bareham (former creative director at some of my favorite websites ever) explains how thats not a bad thing. Making mistakes is being creative, he writes, going on to recommend embracing your worst work as fuel for iterative inspiration:Experimentation is essential to the creative process, and making mistakes doubly so because its often the accidents that lead to something interesting.Great stuff to readThis story introduced me to Jackie Shane, an influential transgender R&B singer particularly active in the 50s and 60s, who is featured in a new documentary. Its just one example of how artists of underrepresented identities are often missing from mainstream music history. Her song Any Other Way is now in heavy rotation in my playlists.A studio director of the video game Baldurs Gate 3 recently confirmed that two copies were sold in The Vatican. For Christina Koh, it begged the delightful and bizarre question: What kind of character would Pope Francis play?If (like me) youre already struggling to find the time for your New Years Resolutions, Roy Phang presents a solution in How 60 Minutes a Day Can Change Your Life, where he shares his journey committing to a daily coding learning ritual but only for three months, not forever. The lesson: Instead of thinking about what you want to spend an hour a day doing for an entire year (terrifying), think about a smaller span of time.Your daily dose of practical wisdomIf youre having trouble writing, youre not reading enough. (David Todd McCarty)

4 expert tips for writing more in 2024Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter2 min readJust now-- Were back and better-rested than everIssue #239: jungle gym careers, Billie Holiday, and questioning your defaultsWriting forces you to hear your thoughts, goes one of my favorite tweets. It is a confrontation with yourself.One of my resolutions this year and maybe one of yours is to write more. (Thankfully, theres a platform for that.) Making space in your life (and your mind) to actually get your ideas and experiences down, though, is harder than it sounds. In a story Ive revisited a few times over the years, writer and illustrator Sophie Lucido Johnson lists her tips for getting out of your own way. Ill be carrying these with me in 2025Confront the Mirror Monster, the voice in your head that says things like no one will ever care about what youre writing. One tactic: Dont reread what youve written until youve finished a Bad First Draft. Novelist Eileen Pollack calls this a zero draft, which I like because it sounds attainable. Just get something down, and then you can improve it.Stop downhill. Stop writing when youre excited to keep going, not when youre stuck so when you reopen that doc, you have a clear next step.Set a timer. The other monster in your head might say I dont have time for this! To vanquish this monster, try the pomodoro method. Set a timer for 25 minutes. Dont let yourself Ctrl-T away from that doc until time is up.Its just work. Its sometimes helpful to view writing less as creativity and more as simply work. It happens one word and one sentence at a time. Henry Miller has a rule (quoted by Johnson): When you cant create, you can work. Harris Sockel 1 sentence, 1 storyYour career is not a ladder its a jungle gym. (Matt Kornfield)Overheard at senior homes: the lyrics to Billie Holidays Easy Living (Loren Kantor)Dont rush to judge your past self they were doing their best with the information they had at the time. (Rikard A. Hjort)I love this list of unexpectedly specific life tips from Sasha Chapin: Being silly is a gift. You un-taboo silliness for everyone around you. A dose of practical wisdom: on resolutionsOne of the best resolutions you can make is to simply start questioning your defaults: the routines, behaviors, and mindsets you find yourself naturally falling into. Most of these are somewhat arbitrary, and changing a few of them, even in subtle ways (a new path for your midafternoon walk, a tweaked morning routine) may lead to a better life.

The top Medium stories of 2024 by reads and sharesPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Its our last issue of 2024. If youve been reading since January, thank you!Issue #238: better meetings + blob peopleThis week, weve shared top highlights, responses, publications, and new writers of the year. But more than anything, Medium is a home for stories so, we dug through our trove of data to bring you a list of 2024s top stories by views and reads. [Please imagine a drumroll here, but instead of drums its the clacking sound of millions of writers tapping furiously on their laptops or mechanical keyboards of choice] The top stories of 2024 areMy Statement on President Bidens Announcement by Former President Barack ObamaCommon side effects of not drinking by cultural anthropologist Karolina Kozmana50 Completely True Things by Palestinian-American creative Mo HusseiniThe secret life of people with high self-control (its easier than you think) by user researcher Riikka IivanainenThe art of disappearing by writer RemiHow an empty S3 bucket can make your AWS bill explode by Senior Software Engineer at Semantive Maciej PocwierzThis must be the place by writer Jennifer PahlkaThe Dramatic Shift of the 2024 Paris Olympic Pictograms by game designer and programmer Elijah CobbWhy I Put Pronouns on my Email Signature (and LinkedIn profile) and You Should Too by trans non-fiction writer Max MasureThe Beauty of Trying by writer thekidultwriterAnd here are the top 10 stories by the number of times they were shared across the internet:Explore more top stories in our end-of-year post.Were taking a break next week, but well see you back here in 2025 with more stories, ideas, and perspectives to deepen understanding. Harris Sockel and the team @ Medium One more story: On remote workIm biased because this story is written by one of my colleagues, Medium Chief of Staff Brittany Jezouit but Brittany really is one of the best Zoom meeting facilitators on Earth. Ive never been in a meeting led by Brittany that didnt feel worth my time. Here are three of her tips, worth keeping in your back pocket for 2025:Implement a no chat rule to help everyone stay focused on the conversation itself (and not on Zooms text chat feature).During meetings, ask your colleagues to close Slack (or Teams, or their inbox).To avoid that who wants to go first? awkwardness, just drop a list of whos talking, in what order, into the chat. And lastlyTaking a page from psychologist Sorina Raluca Bbu: Which blob person are you?Ill go one step further which blob person will you be in 2025?Photo by blobtree.com via Sorina Raluca BbuIll be #8-ing for the next few weeks, but hoping to come roaring back as a #10 in 2025. Tag yourself in the responses, if you like. And happy early New Year, from all of us here at Medium.

A few notable writers who made their Medium debut in 2024Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter4 min readJust now-- Its my favorite time of year: Dead Week, the no mans land between Xmas and New Years EveIssue #237: weird libraries, beating procrastination, and a goal-setting techniqueOn Medium, anyone can publish a story, find an audience, and earn money. This happens thousands of times a day, often for writers brand new to the platform. Case in point: Here are a few of the top Boosted stories written by people who published for the very first time this yearGaming journalist Giovanni Colantonio close-reads the lyrics to Taylor Swifts Tortured Poets Department, which broke the record for most daily Spotify streams in April. He sees the album as a meta commentary on Swifts parasocial relationship with her fans, writing: The subtext here is that overprotective Swifties dont actually have Taylor Swifts best interest in mind.Adam DeMartino, cofounder of a buzzy specialty mushroom startup once valued at $90 million, conducts a public postmortem into why it failed. Essentially, they thought they were a tech company but were really a food company and food cant scale as fast as tech. VC bets are inherently speculative, he writes, and if you want to ride that dragon, you need to be a literal dragon rider. I couldnt ride the VC dragon.Zhafira Aqyla sparked a conversation about why she chose an arranged marriage. To me, arranged marriage is different [than] forced marriage, Aqyla writes. From the many candidates my parents offered, I had a choice to say no, and I did, plenty of times [] Its a lot like Tinder, except in this scenario it is an extremely vetted Tinder customized to my personal interest.Remylyn Tornilla (aka Remi) joined Medium via TikTok, publishing personal, confessional stories that resonated with hundreds of thousands of readers. We interviewed Remi on our blog last summer. I honestly didnt expect so many people to relate to my writing, she says. Writing on Medium has been my escape.Jack Handey of SNL fame penned a satirical tale of young love. Theres an Aristocrats joke element to this, i.e. a twist at the end. I am 58 years old, Handey writes. My fiancee, Holly, is 18. Some people might look askance at our relationship, because of the age difference. But what they dont realize is how much Holly and I have in common: We both like to have sex a lot, we both like to make out in public, and we both like to drink heavilyThose are just a tiny handful of the new writers who opened up a blank post page and shared their ideas, experiences, feelings, and perceptions with us. Who were some of your favorite new writers this year? Who did you discover? Respond to let us all know, and to give us a few new writers to follow in 2025. Harris Sockel Elsewhere on MediumToday is the first day of Kwanzaa, a weeklong celebration of African American culture that began in 1966 and, as Chant Griffin writes, its principles of unity and collective responsibility transcend its founders controversial past.To end procrastination, ruthlessly eliminate nice-to-haves. (Evgeny Khoroshilov)Youre not living if you dont have a Weird Library (a cache of esoteric, out-of-print books that arent easily categorized). Read outside the lines! Find a dusty paperback in a used bookstore and get into it. As Rebecca Solnit says, originality is partly a matter of having your own influences. (AP Strange) Your daily dose of practical wisdomMost of the goals we set for ourselves are mimetic: Weve been influenced into wanting them. Luke Burgis, author of a book on mimetic desire, recommends an exercise to help you become more self-aware of your goals:On a piece of paper, draw a circle.Inside the circle, list all of the people or institutions that have influenced your goals, covertly or overtly (e.g. Instagram Fitness Influencer That I Follow Who Has Six-Pack Abs)Outside the circle, list what comes to mind when you ask yourself this question: What things might I want to pursue that are completely outside the boundaries of what people and institutions are asking of me, and for which there is no support or understanding? (Examples: learning needlepoint, starting a blog about your obscure interest in the history of mechanical keyboards, or really anything youre zesty about that no one is asking for.)

Publications that made Medium great in 2024Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter4 min readJust now-- Today gives us a wonderful two-for-one holiday deal: Merry Christmas AND Happy Hanukkah!Issue #236: a tech copywriters foster care beginnings, Xmas movie reviews, and hilarious Hanukkah cartoonsIf youre not entirely familiar with publications on Medium, theyre essentially magazines or collections of stories. Some writers use publications as portfolios to collect their best work. Others have grown them into thriving communities, with their own meetup schedules, editorial calendars, and support systems. In 2024, over 865,000 stories were published in over 33,000 active publications.These publications are gifts to the Medium community. Their editors often put in long hours managing and delivering feedback on dozens, if not hundreds, of drafts a month. Earlier this year, we launched a new Featured Stories functionality to help them get their best stories out to a wider audience.A little bird told me theres a lot more in store for publications in 2025. To help you learn more about them and support them in the new year, were dedicating this issue to the array of publications on Medium.New pubsOver 11,000 new publications were launched in 2024! Here are a few that particularly resonated with our readers this year:The Quantastic Journal: a publication about humanity, science, and technology. Sample story: What is a Particle, Really? by Selena Routley.The Parenting Portal: its about all things parenting, but its not just for parents. Sample story: Pregnancy Feels Different With Grief by Ayne.Life Without Children: for those who choose (or did not choose) a child-free life. Sample story: Why the Crazy Cat Lady Stereotype Is Especially Problematic for Women Without Children by Charlie Brown.Iberospherical, a publication that focuses on stories of Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking lands and culture. Sample story: My Name, My Home by Mario Lpez-Goicoechea.The Psychology of Workplaces: examining workplace culture and featuring tons of career tips. Sample story: How My Outsider Status Led to My Greatest Successes by Neela.Active pubsThese publications are dependable resources every day. They are inspiring examples of what Medium communities can offer, especially if you are thinking about launching a pub of your own!Towards Data Science: Truly a one-stop-shop for anyone interested in technology topics, you can learn everything from tech career tips to how to build your own LLM.UX Collective: Its not just about digital design. Its stories feature a lot of important conversations about inclusivity/accessibility, color theory, and brand-building.The Writing Cooperative, a phenomenal resource for grammar tips and advice on crafting narrative, but it also features encouraging topics, like Writing Through The Christmas Holidays: A Survival Guide.The Narrative Arc: If you love memoirs about the human condition, this is the place to be. It also runs monthly writing challenges, which are a great way to stretch your skills and get to know their community.Tastyble: Featuring truly useful recipes and cooking advice for things you know you should be doing, but dont, so now you dont have an excuse (such as properly cleaning a cast iron pan or how to quick-pickle your own stuff).Find *your* new favorite pubsSubscribe to our Huge List of Publications Accepting Submissions. Although primarily a resource for writers seeking pubs, its also a way to find active and emerging communities on Medium.PRO TIP: Use Mediums search to look for topics youre interested in, and filter by hitting the publication tab on the results page!Subscribe to our official blog for our monthly It Happened On Medium roundups. We mention plenty of new publications there, too.Check out the comment section of this post!? If its empty, why not get into the generosity of this holiday season and share your favorite ones here?Recommended readingIn Debugging My Childhood, Shari Walker shares her journey from a foster home to becoming a tech copywriter, lovingly depicting heartbreaking details from her childhood and describing how she transformed her experiences into empowerment.Laugh your way into the next eight crazy nights with Ellen Liebenthals hilarious illustrated Hanukkah Gifts for Companies That Just Dont Get it. My favorite might be the Chanukah Bunny. (Runner up: The Adam Sandler snowglobe??)Eric Pierce, editor of Fanfare, endured 40 titles to make this list of the best and worst Christmas movies to stream right now. His pick for #1 best movie? Klaus, an animated film available on Netflix that seems profoundly charming and may help you avoid the #1 most controversial debate at family holiday gatherings: So, what should we watch tonight?STILL searching for gifts? Youre not alone. For those of us in the U.S., we can blame a late Thanksgiving for that; its left us all in a scramble. Im thankful for this gift guide by author Ximena Vengoechea, which features useful book recommendations and easy options to quickly find, such as a panettone cake (classic and classy, IMO) or unique memberships (like to your local botanical garden).A practical dose of writing wisdom: denotation vs. connotationIf you are worried about offending your audience, lean into the denotation (the strict definition) of the words you use. If you want to persuade your audience, lean into their connotations (the vibes).

The Medium responses that got you talking (and reading) this yearPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Welcome backIssue #235: why Spotify wrapped hits different this year + reversible decisionsIts an age-old principle of the internet: Cunninghams Law. To get an accurate answer, say the wrong thing in a public forum and someone will probably jump in to correct you! Wikipedia is built on this principle, and its one of the forces driving the rise of comment sections across the internet over the last 25 years.All to say: Theres wisdom to be found in the comments if you know where to look. With that in mind, I spelunked through Mediums stats to find the most-read responses across every story published this year. I found a pattern: Experts jumping in to add thoughtful context. Here are a few of the top responses I uncovered.Retired software developer Creig S tempers expectations that AI will eat the world:Lets get rid of any myths about how smart or good AI is. I prefer to treat the product of generative AI like you would a 3 year old who thinks all dogs are named King, with patience, caution, humor, and allowance for many errors.Entrepreneur Kevin Dewalt adds nuance to VC firm Maverick Ventures LLM predictions:Relative to traditional software, tiny teams can build powerful applications very quickly because the LLM takes on the reasoning traditionally captured by thousands of lines of code. As LLMs get exponentially better, this trend will inevitably continue.Lastly, JenFireHeartMamas viral story about the dissolution of her nine-year marriage prompted several of the years most-read responses. Dino DiGiulia, who went through divorce himself, remembers this tremendous feeling of freedom. Broke, alone, but free. And Allene Swienckowski chimes in with some hard-earned life wisdom from her 58-year marriage: Without a doubt, marriage, or just committing to another human, requires trust, love, desire (both emotionally and physically) and quite a lot of understanding self and other humans. Harris Sockel Our open tabsProduct growth expert Rosie Hoggmascall chronicles the 10-year history of Spotify Wrapped (now a viral marketing trend across many major apps, from Duolingo to Loom). This years Wrapped broke a record for listens (up 26% from last year), but fell narratively flat for some and Hoggmascall chalks it up to Spotify cutting 17% of its team this year.Software development is an exercise in decision making, and more than 50% of development time is typically spent investigating existing systems to figure out how they work. (software development consultant swardley)In storytelling, one salient detail beats many details every time. (Lulu Cheng Meservey) A dose of practical wisdomUncertainty is exhausting for humans (its one of the reasons why decision-making is so draining). A helpful tip, via Mark Shrime, MD, PhD: There are very, very, very few decisions in your life that cant be reversed. Tattoos can be removed, cross-country moves undone, purchases returned, and omelettes shared.

The most-highlighted sentences of 2024Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter4 min readJust now-- The highlight of my year? Working on this newsletter. Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of you who open and read this each week!Issue #234: highlights, year-end book lists, and deliberate distractionAs the calendar year wraps up, were doing the same here at the Medium Newsletter. This week, well be taking a look back at the year on Medium, pulling out the top highlighted passages (today), calling out some of the most-read responses, flagging notable new publications, writers new to Medium, and (Friday) sharing the most-read and most-shared stories of the year. Then were taking a break for the last week of 2024 we hope you will as well, we all need rest and will be back in 2025 to help you better understand your world in the new year.Reading through the most-highlighted passages from the year, a few clear themes stood out. By far the biggest one and not a surprise if youre a regular reader of this newsletter, as we highlighted a number of these in past issues are ideas related to deepening your understanding of yourself:When it comes to writing online, how I beats how to. Brendan Charles, Why I shifted from pure writing to documenting insteadPeople with high levels of trait self-control are good at avoiding temptation not resisting it. Riikka Iivanainen, The secret life of people with high self-control (its easier than you think)Showing up. Showing up with your whole self, showing up with your values and beliefs, showing up with what makes you unique, but above all showing up with consistency. JA Westenberg, Just show upTheres a fine line between taking on a worthwhile challenge, and taking on unnecessary stress. John Gorman, Stop wasting your timeThe problem with good habits, in other words, is that they sacrifice intentionality for efficiency. Stephan Joppich, Goodbye, Atomic HabitsEdison did not look for problems in need of solutions; he looked for solutions in need of modification.Of course, the flip side of this showed up here, too there was also a lot of wisdom about better understanding other people:If a persons behavior doesnt make sense to you, it is because you are missing a part of their context. Devon Price, Laziness does not existThe value of research doesnt come from elevating people who are already shouting. It comes from finding the people who are not being heard, and adding their voices to the conversation. Pavel Samsonov, Nikes $25B blunder shows us the limits of data-drivenHonesty is direct, whereas dishonesty tends to be indirect. Joshua Mason, Im an (actual) detective: Here are 7 signs that someone is lying to youLastly: While were avowedly pro-human-writing here at Medium, we also know AI tools can serve many purposes, like helping you learn new skills. And two of the most-highlighted passages this year were AI prompts that will raise your skill level in using chat-based AI tools like ChatGPT. We think youll find them useful:Before you start, please ask me any questions you have about this so I can give you more context. Be extremely comprehensive. Jordan Gibbs, The most important ChatGPT promptCreate a curated list of use cases for ChatGPT, each thoughtfully designed to align with my occupation. This list will serve as my personalized guide, enabling me to leverage ChatGPTs capabilities in various aspects of my occupation. Organize this list into 10 distinct sections sorted by their relevance to my occupation. In each section, construct a table with columns for Use Case and Example Request. Each section will contain 5 use cases examples. The Example Request will be written in the form of a direct request to ChatGPT. Begin by asking me about my occupation, and based on it fill in the interests, goals, challenges Im facing. Its imperative that you follow the request for 10 sections and 5 use case examples in each section. Bernard Builds, This one prompt will teach you how to use ChatGPTWhat else were readingIve never thought of it this way, but year-end book lists tend to be misleading for very mechanical reasons: Unlike music, TV, and movies, books take a long time to read, meaning critics can only read a tiny fraction of what gets published every year. (Janice Harayda)The best thing I learned from this story about a chefs time working at a Michelin-starred restaurant was how the culinary team the folks making the food are also the servers, hosts, and dishwashers. They see the whole experience, so they know how to make it better. (Fox Britten)The deputy campaign manager for Kamala Harris sees her loss as a symptom of a larger issue for Democrats: The institutions theyre used to influencing traditional media and Hollywood are no longer the dominant cultural forces. You dont get a national eight-point shift to the right without losing hold of culture. (Semafor) Your daily dose of practical wisdom about inspirationTo find creative inspiration, practice deliberate distraction. Put yourself in the path of serendipity with an aimless diversion, like flipping through old encyclopedias or browsing the shelves of a bookstore without a goal in mind, and see what unexpected connections your mind starts to make.

A Tale of Two Offsites, 2024An inside look at the itineraries for our all-company gatherings in Portland and Scotland this yearPublished inThe Medium Blog17 min readJust now--Bass Rock outside our hotel in North Berwick, Scotland. Photo by author.Do you remember high school chemistry class? My husband once told me about a poster in his class. It had an image of a giant elephant teetering atop a tiny beach ball. The key to life is balance was printed underneath. The phrase has since become a mantra for our relationship and our individual lives too. Ah, chemistry, its not just for the classroom!Medium is a remote team, but we meet up twice a year for all-company work sessions, team building, and bonding. We call them offsites. Two offsites a year gives us an opportunity to strike a balance between the vibe and focus of each offsite. When I start planning Mediums offsites for the year with our team, I cant help but have the image of that graceful elephant on a beach ball in my head. Considering the role balance plays in chemistry, I can easily see how important it is for strengthening the chemistry of a large gathering of colleagues.For our offsite locations, we search all over the world for inspiring properties that reflect Mediums values and sensibilities, then choose the place that most represents where we are as a team at that point in time. Some of it is strongly educated guesswork we like to plan our offsites as far in advance as possible, but you never really know exactly where things will be a year from now.In 2024, we went first to Portland then to Scotland. Right before Portland, Medium reached a milestone of 1 million members and we were ready to celebrate our wins, so we knew staying in downtown Portland was going to feel spirited and energetic. This meant we needed a location for our fall offsite that offered a balance. A beautiful old hotel in an idyllic seaside Scottish town was a restorative, quiet counter.As I share our itineraries for these two offsites, youll see how the balance between the two was an essential part of our year.Offsites are a game-changer for companies and are becoming essential for successful remote/hybrid teams. Its true they can feel overwhelming to plan, but they dont have to be! If you work for a remote company and youre thinking about planning an offsite, or are in the midst of planning one now, I hope these two outlines help make your job a little easier. Im not going to go into too much detail about our work sessions, but Ill share with you all the cool things we did in downtown PDX and rural Scotland. If youre planning an offsite, steal this itinerary! Why we chose Portland Itinerary Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Part II: Autumn in North Berwick, Scotland Why we chose North Berwick, Scotland Itinerary Weekend before (Fri-Sun) Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Looking ahead to 2025Part I: Spring in Portland, OregonJust to note: Medium isnt affiliated with any of the companies or businesses we mention below, and were not getting compensated for giving them shoutouts here. We just had a great experience with all of them and would recommend it. But of course, there are so many things to do and you can do your own research, too our experience is just one perspective!Why we chose PortlandPortland is a vibrant city that is bouncing back from hard times. We were faced with the difficult realities of a neighborhood in recovery and gave back in many ways throughout the week. Every employee and staff member at every location we went to was helpful, hardworking, and enthusiastic about their love of the Rose City. The next time I hear someone say they got the most bang for their buck somewhere, I might reflexively think of this offsite in Portland.Going into this offsite, heres what was important to us:A place where we could all be together in one building, with lots of space for work.A focus on fun and playour team loves games, and its a great way to build relationships and trust. Youll see how we leaned into this as a theme for the week.Activities that spark meaningful conversation and thoughtful reflection.A final night that felt like a celebration (in a way that aligns with our values and personality as a company).Heres what our itinerary looked like for the week.ItineraryMondayTravel day! For the folks who arrived early (some got in on Saturday or Sunday), we kept the day free so they could explore Portland on their own terms. Some of us hit up Hawthorne Asylum Food Carts, The Freakybuttrue Peculiarium, the big Pendleton store, and so many other things that we couldnt fit in the official program for the week.In the evening we gathered on the rooftop of The Hoxton, our hotel for the week. The Hoxton has 119 rooms, which was perfect for our company of ~80 people. Shoutout to the Hoxton team (Simone and Jen and the whole front desk crew!). They rearranged their entire restaurant to accommodate our group, set up snacks, and went above and beyond in their attention to detail for our team all week.. Their restaurant, Tope, not only has a terrace with gorgeous views of the city and Mt. Hood to the east, but also had outrageously good food and drinks.Perfect spot for a kickoff speech from our CEO Tony StubblebineTuesdayInstead of having our offsite work sessions in a basement conference center with no light and stale air, we got creative and worked with The Hoxton to have exclusive use of the first floor restaurant for the week. Ive gone into more detail about my disdain for windowless meeting spaces in my previous post, and I must say, The Hoxton knocked it out of the park for us.Just one of the pretty corners of our large workspace.Conversations on a comfortable, plush couch are very different from conversations had on a plastic folding chair.We had a quick breakfast in the hotels apartment space, then kicked off our first work session of the week. Some teams differ here, but we love to get right to it and front-load our week while ideas are fresh and energy is high.Powells historian telling us its historyAfter lunch and another work session, we headed to Powells City of Books. Its likely youve heard of Powells and really, The Hoxtons proximity to the bookstore was a huge selling point. The Powells team gave us a ten-minute talk on the history of the store, then we were off to wander the labyrinthian mecca of books. If you do this part of the itinerary, we highly recommend giving your team members a book stipend! It was fun to see our team recommend books to each other, buy books to bring home to their kids, and pick out books for Thursdays book swap (more on that in a bit). After Powells, we took a short walk to Mox Boarding House, a restaurant where you rent a board game to play while you dine. We love gaming and Mox has a gigantic store in the front of the restaurant filled with obscure board games from all over the world.WednesdayWe like to schedule optional group physical activity at least once throughout the week, so we had a phenomenal early riser yoga class with Sydney from YoYoYogi at the hotel, or folks could join a team-led run. We then went to an incredibly delicious and casual, show-up-whenever breakfast at Mothers Bistro, followed by breakout team time and smaller work sessions back at the hotel.Portland is known for its food truck culture, so we went to the Expensify Midtown Beer Garden for lunch. Usually food halls will ask that you buy gift cards for things like this, but were not into the gift card thing (the single-use plastic, and small amount of money that often ends up on the card, seems so wasteful). Midtown Beer Garden let us use wristbands! Each employee was given a wristband for the day, so after ordering their meal from one of the trucks in Midtown Beer Garden, they just showed their wristband and it was added to the running tab we closed out at the end. Midtown Beer Garden has a lot of picnic tables under big tents and folks gathered in smaller groups on their own.After lunch, we returned to our workspaces in The Hoxton and had small group presentations and downtime. Then we had dinner at Xin Ding Dumpling House and a Medium-themed trivia night, led by our People Team. Our way of dividing up teams was to shuffle different colored bandanas, hand them out one by one at the door, and have folks sit at the table with a corresponding color bandana placed at the center. (As any former camp counselor or teacher will know, assigning teams with objects or colors is a shortcut to a shared identity among a team.) Trivia is pretty interactive, so it takes the pressure off of conversation and can help ease social anxiety or social fatigue from a long workday.Kimberly Ebelt was my rousing co-host!Once dinner was over, we had an optional Spooky Ghost Tour with one of our team members friends from the area. This was one of my favorite parts of our offsite. There is a reason theres a popular, giant mural near our hotel that reads Keep Portland Weird and this spectacular, supernatural tour really gave us the weird factor!We learned so much about downtown Portlands history through our awesome guide!A note on what looks like an extremely busy day its important to communicate the things at your offsite that are mandatory and those that are not, as well as the things that you dont have to be at for the entire time. We really strive to make sure folks are reminded they can do things like sleep in and show up later to breakfast if they want, or come back from lunch early to relax in the quiet of their room, or go home directly after dinner. Empowering folks to find moments to recharge between mandatory work sessions is essential.ThursdayWith the busy Wednesday, we intentionally sought to bring some introspection to the morning of our last full day at the offsite. At 9am after a casual buffet breakfast at the hotel, we walked to Lan Su Chinese Garden, just two blocks from our hotel. The staff there was kind enough to open an hour early for our team to spend time writing and reflecting in one of the most beautiful places Ive ever seen.Our Chief of Staff Brittany Jezouit deep in contemplationWere very keen to consider when an offsite starts to feel overproduced. Were all pretty savvy here at Medium and dont need much hand-holding (though that is nice once in a while) so we decided after the visit to the Chinese garden, a nice choose-your-own-adventure was in order. Want to go for a hike? Grab a Lyft to Hoyt Arboretum and get some forest bathing in. Want to get a bit of a workout in? Go for a brisk, uphill walk through downtown to Washington Park for a walk around the famed Portland Japanese Garden. Want to head back to the hotel to get some work done, pack for departure tomorrow, or take a nap? Do that!We all reconvened at the hotel for a casual, quite delicious lunch (the salmon was truly divine), then had our book swap! Here were the directions:Bring a book to give away (you cant take a book unless you bring one in exchange). It can be any book nonfiction, fiction, poetry, memoir and does not have to be work-related.For added mystery, were going to do this as a Blind Date with a Book style when you take home a book, you wont know which book youre choosing! Well have wrapping paper and markers for you to write a description/clues about your book and why you think another Median would love it.An intriguing way of describing a book ready for swapping.After the book swap, we did one of my favorite things to do at offsites: a two hour block devoted to follow ups and conversations that are best to have in person. Throughout the week there may have been that one thing you need to tie up before you leave and a tte tte is in order.As our week was winding down, we took the opportunity to connect with our larger Medium community and held our first ever Pub Panel with our featured pub editor guests, Debra G. Harman, MEd. and Judy Walker in conversation with our very own VP of Content, Scott Lamb. It was moving, enlightening, and so much fun. We had a coffee and donut social after, with an array of curious donuts from Doe Donuts, Coco Donuts, and Blue Star.For our final dinner of the week, we made it to the cozy but lively Deschutes Brewery Portland Public House where we enjoyed Oregon-centric food and world class brews including my new favorite, Black Butte Porter (the non-alcoholic kind)!I found out Im actually pretty good at pinball!We decided to save one of the most exciting moments for the last night of the offsite. After dinner, we all walked a few short blocks to Ground Kontrol. This place is a sight to behold. A multi-level arcade with vintage games from (and for) all generations. They separate their space into two areas, the blue zone and the red zone. We opted for exclusive use of the blue zone for the night (but could still play for free in the general public red zone). They even set up karaoke for us. We called it Karao-cade. While we were in Portland I asked all team leads and managers to take videos and photos and send them to me via slack. Then I tucked myself away for 3 hours during that donut social and edited the videos and pictures into a recap of the week that we projected on the screen at Ground Kontrol. I use a video editing app on my iphone called VideoLeap. Its shockingly easy to use and really fun!The last night of an offsite is thrilling. After the last work session ends, the final dinner is enjoyed, and the agenda is fully executed, I get this profound sense of accomplishment and gratitude for the effort everyone put into our shared experience.FridayWe had grab-and-go breakfast at the hotel, said our goodbyes to each other, Portland, and the wonderful team at The Hoxton, then all grabbed Lyfts back to the airport home to tell our friends and family of the thrilling week wed had.Part II: Autumn in North Berwick, ScotlandWhy we chose North Berwick, ScotlandIn March 2024, North Berwick, Scotland, a small seaside town outside Edinburgh, was named the #1 best place to live in all of the UK by The Sunday Times. Its idyllic and quaint with beautiful old stone churches, cottages, museums, and chip shops. After our bustling spring offsite in Portland, OR, North Berwick gave perfect balance to our offsites of the year. Our hotel was spectacular. With 83 gorgeously designed rooms, banquet hall and workspace, spa, gym, restaurant, bar, and even putting green on site, Marine North Berwick was one of the more luxurious places weve stayed. The staff is all top notch (shoutout to Gina, Megan, and Laura!) The town of North Berwick has many noteworthy historical highlights. In the 1590s King James the 6th claimed to have been assaulted at sea by a group of witches from North Berwick, saying they tried to sink his ship by conjuring a storm. It set off a pretty nasty series of witch trials that caused the murder of at least 70 women. Much later, Robert Lewis Stevenson drew inspiration from the islands off the coast of North Berwick as he wrote Treasure Island.North Berwicks harborItineraryWeekend before (Fri-Sun)Knowing our offsite was to take place close to the incredible city of Edinburgh, we encouraged our team members to arrive there the weekend before to acclimate to the time zone as well as explore the historic city. We reserved a hotel block for everyone so we were all in the same place. We opted to leave that part of the journey unstructured and unprogrammed. I did however share my own personal itinerary for that weekend in a Medium post so anyone could join me as I explored. This opt-in approach took the pressure off folks who were wanting some independence, but also gave me some company and connection with the folks who met up along the way.MondaySome folks skipped the weekend in Edinburgh and headed straight to North Berwick. Once your flight has landed on the isle, the fastest way to travel in the UK is by rail. Its so convenient, timely, and a more eco-friendly way to travel! North Berwick is at the end of the line on a 25-minute train from Edinburgh, then Marine North Berwick is a 10-minute downhill walk through a charming and safe neighborhood. We let folks mosey over to the hotel all day and explore the town of North Berwick at their leisure. We really enjoyed the Coastal Communities museum (where I learned about those cool witches!) and the Scottish Seabird Center.The Original St. Andrews Church in townIn the evening, we had our first gathering in the hotels plush bar, Bass Rock, with handheld bites, mocktails/cocktails, and a traditional Scottish band.TuesdayIn the UK, its customary for a full breakfast to be included in your stayeven in hotels with fewer stars than the one we stayed at! Every morning we had a huge breakfast buffet with fruit, cheeses, breads, granola, yogurt, and so much more. There was also an a la carte menu with full Scottish (yes, haggis and black pudding!) We kept breakfast optional and casual dining style to allow folks who may have still had a bit of jetlag to sleep in if they needed. We appointed leaders for a run/jog club on Tuesday and Thursday, so some folks got a run on the beach and through town on those days.Marine North Berwick has a fabulous banquet hall we used as our meeting space. Like most locations, they offer different table arrangements. I always opt for large banquet rounds for work sessions. I wont go into detail about our work sessions, but know that we usually like to start with the most important work sessions on Tuesday morning. This is an important part of setting the tone for the week, and its when most folks energy is highest.Scotland knows a thing or two about beautifully patterned carpets. The view out the work spaces window is of the Firth of Fourth, a stunningly gorgeous Scottish inlet. (photo courtesy of the hotel)I loved the unconventional nature of the Portland offsites meeting space, but Ive found that more traditional work spaces can be just as effective for focused, productive teamwork. But this only works when they have great natural light, or better yet, awe-inspiring views of the sea.We had a quick grab-and-go lunch in the foyer of the workspace and got right back to it. I totally need to give a shout out to Marine North Berwicks team here. When I worked with their head chef to decide our menu, we discussed the need for lighter fare for lunch. No one wants to come back to a work session all sleepy having eaten a big bowl of pasta. They brought us creative lunch wraps, interesting salads, light pastries, etc.We also did the Medium book swap we love to do at every offsite during this lunch. We changed the timing of the book swap from Thursday to Tuesday so people could read their books throughout the week.We set up our Friday departures on Tuesday, too. Some folks had early flights out of Edinburgh and trains wouldnt get them there in time. As an easy way to coordinate this, we put a simple sign up sheet for them to choose which hour theyd like to leave and booked enough cars for them.WednesdayAnother delicious breakfast in the restaurant kicked off our third work session of the week. The hotel offered multiple breakout areas and a property as large as Marine North Berwick, many of our meetings were able to be held in a comfy corner of the lobby or in the sundeck of Bass Rock Bar.A still from a video Cassie McDaniel took of Cameron Price chasing birds during sunrise!Maintaining the balance with the Portland offsite, we opted for all our official meals taking place at the hotel. That didnt mean all our meals happened in the same place around the same times. For our Wednesday lunch, we gathered for Scottish high tea, but instead of doing it in the foyer of the meeting space or in the restaurant, we held it in the lovely and cozy lobby. Towers of treats adorned the space, making it feel casual and playful.Ill never forget those Dulce de Leche tarts on the top rightWe returned to smaller work sessions for brainstorming and smaller group discussion, then broke before dinner. When you have offsites centered around crucial work sessions, its important to add even more break time to your schedule so folks can rest and recover.Being that we were in a magnificent, old Scottish hotel we felt we absolutely had to hire a murder mystery troupe for the evening. Trying not to ruin the surprise, we told everyone it was a theater troupe with macabre and adult themes. This was so fun, especially with the Scottish accents. The show started in the hotel lobby before dinner, dinner took place in the restaurant, then we finished the show back in the lobby.ThursdayBreakfast and lunch were in the same locations as Tuesdays meals, so we could focus on our last day together. We closed out our last work sessions with an all-team meeting and sendoff, then took a much-deserved break before dinner.Bagpipes are a must when throwing an event in Scotland. We booked Roddy (Reel Time Events) to announce dinner by playing his bagpipe at the entrance to Bass Rock Bar where the team got a drink before dinner. Then, he led us back to the banquet hall. We had flipped the room while everyone was away and it was turned from work stations to a dining room! Roddy did the address to the haggis.Its quite a show and the poem is great funAs is becoming customary, we designated the time after dinner a Medium game night. Folks played games of Werewolf, cards, and had quiet conversations throughout the hotels many cozy corners.FridayWe had grab-and-go breakfast at the hotel, said our goodbyes to each other, and headed to EDI. Some folks chose to stay on to explore the UK that weekend to visit the Scottish Highlands or Glasgow. A great thing about bringing your team to far-off places is they are given the opportunity to explore and deepen their understanding of the world.Looking ahead to 2025I think of the two offsites we do each year as companion pieces, so it makes sense to look year-over-year with a similar lens. Were laddering together. What havent we done? Whats out there for us to find? What does our team need most? Bolstered by our learnings and team experiences from this years offsites, what is our next frontier? I know were all chomping at the bit to find out.

We sent you 233 emails this year; here are your favesPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Its the Friday-est Friday of the yearIssue #233: ambiguity, art, and tab lifeWere about to take a much-needed vacation here at Medium HQ (though we still have a few issues coming your way next week!). Looking back, I sort of cant believe weve been sending this newsletter daily for almost a year (!). Thank you for your comments, questions, emails, and (if youre a writer on Medium) for publishing the stories weve all been reading, highlighting, and sharing.Our first issue, which went out on January 31, states the mission weve stuck to since the beginning: Real humans (hi!) who work at Medium sharing human perspectives that deepen understanding about the world. Weve featured over 800 writers and 1,000 stories this year. Over 2 million people subscribed. Here are the issues you loved this yearOur most-read issue: Persuasive people dont argue they listen. The title is a quote from Andy Murphys 16 Strange But Beautiful Paradoxes in Life.Our most popular theme this year? Creativity. Thousands of you nodded along with designer Ida Perssons advice for embracing ambiguity by exploring ideas that dont immediately reveal themselves as hits.Decision-making was another big theme for us here in Newsletterland. We explored cognitive biases like action bias (we prefer doing something to doing nothing, even when inactivity would be more beneficial) and bikeshedding (fixating on trivial improvements while ignoring underlying issues).Lastly, we solved every problem with generative AI this year, didnt we? Just kidding. But it was a huge topic in the newsletter. We explored how deepfakes are destroying the stock photo industry. We learned from an eighth-graders experiment to pit AI-generated poetry against human-written poetry. And we grappled with the age-old question: Can robots make art?And before I go maybe this is just me but will anyone else remember summer 2024 for grainy, lo-res images such as this beaut?If you played Zoom In, our slightly unhinged game in August, we see you. And we thank you. And maybe well see you in the new year? Harris Sockel What else were readingAfter a three-month trial, Dominique Pelicot and 50 other men were convicted of raping Gisle Pelicot over nearly a decade. As the judge read the verdict, Gisles supporters gathered outside the courthouse, singing and chanting: We are strong, we are proud, and feminist and radical and angry.Alfred Hitchcock is often cited as the inventor of spoiler warnings because he (a) hid the final pages of his scripts from actors, and (b) insisted audiences not tell friends about his films endings. On Medium, Monia Ali thinks weve taken spoiler alert a little too far. I hear it all the time in reference to any plot device or narrative element (even if its not actually a spoiler). I think this happened over the last decade or so, as weve all started watching shows asynchronously. (Fanfare)Do you have kids? might seem like an innocent conversation-starter, but as a former doula on Medium writes, it can imply social pressure to have them. (MD) A dose of practical wisdomGoogle Docs just made it easier to write your novel, dissertation, or multi-episode miniseries: You can weave together multiple docs in a single window via document tabs (its on the left).

Its not (always) insomnia, its segmented sleepPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min read7 hours ago-- Its Thursday, and weve got just 3.46% of the year left to go!Issue #232: a muster of peacocks + starting smallI dont get enough sleep. I bet you dont either. The NIH helpfully reminds us that lack of sleep is a problem, causing high blood pressure, stroke, obesity, lack of productivity and an increased likelihood of death. If you tend to jolt awake in the middle of the night (like I often do), thinking about these facts doesnt exactly help you chill out. I was therefore thrilled to learn that there might be something off with the current prescription for seven hours of uninterrupted sleep.As historian Robert Ekirch writes, sleeping for one uninterrupted interval is simply a function of artificial light and the industrial revolution. Before electricity and factories, segmented sleep sleeping in two intervals was all the rage. Benjamin Franklin was a fan: Between first sleep and second sleep he would get naked, throw open the windows and take cold air baths. The French called the period between the two sleeps dorveille, while the English called it the watch. Both terms sound ancient and spooky in a cool way, which made me search for other people who embrace this period of sleeplessness. On Medium, Ron Geraci describes this state as an odd, placid form of being awakemore aware but less alerta ripe sentience that allowed clear but limited thought and wanted stillness.Reading this helped me reframe what I previously defined as insomnia. Now, when I wake up in the middle of the night, instead of stressing out about NIH factoids, I remind myself I might be conscious in a way that is only available to me in that moment. I allow my mind to wander, to think in a way that still feels sort of like a dream. This has paid off: I have an army of Monarch butterflies in my garden because one night I decided the next day I was going to plant milkweed everywhere (just one example of my more recent dream-like decisions).There doesnt seem to be a scientific consensus about whether biphasic sleep is a good thing, but thats okay. For me, the knowledge that there is more than one way of looking at periods of sleeplessness has made the NIHs dire warnings less scary, and makes me want to give a shout out to the true sleep rebels, our beloved night owls. While they dont necessarily have two sleeps, they do find themselves hyper-focused in the middle of the night. A self-described night owl, Stefanie Morejon, writes on Medium that her behavior is perhaps evolutionary, essential for human survival. Somebody, she writes, had to stay awake to keep the fires burning, to protect the community and keep the night creatures at bay. Elsewhere on MediumA watch of nightingales. A muster of peacocks. A murder of crows. These delightfully unexpected collective nouns, or terms of venery, date back to a 1486 book about hunting. Most people dont realize English contains collective nouns for groups of humans, too, e.g. a promise of bartenders and a hastiness of cooks (!). We really need to start coining more of these. A draft of Medium writers? Thats not great. Someone should fix that. If you have ideas, let me know. (Jack Shepherd) Worth rememberingTo tell a good story, start super small. (Katie E. Lawrence)

It happened on Medium in 2024A roundup of the stories and milestones our readers and staff found most meaningful in 2024Published inThe Medium Blog12 min read3 hours ago--Image created by Jason Combs, featuring images from the stories in this roundup.Showing up. Showing up with your whole self, showing up with your values and beliefs, showing up with what makes you unique, but above all showing up with consistency.That is one of the most highlighted lines across all of Medium in 2024, from tech and politics writer JA Westenberg. Its a story about how, in a world of infinite variables that determine how well you do in life, theres just one thing you can control: showing up.Humans tend to aim for big, flashy, goals think of the classic New Years resolutions like Ill finally get into shape, or Ill write that novel. The problem is that those goals, without consistently showing up, dont amount to much. Your gym membership goes unused and your novel draft stays in the drawer.This year, Mediums biggest resolution was to try to build a better internet. Thats a huge goal. Its daring. Its lofty. And, like every other goal, it would have fizzled into nothingness without being backed up by people willing to show up and do the work.Im not only talking about Medium employees (although the 70-odd of us were dedicated and committed to that!). Its the writers who share their best work with us. Its the readers who leave thoughtful responses, no matter if they agree or disagree with the writer. Its the publication editors who write the clearest, cleanest guidelines to help readers and writers know what to expect from their community. Its the Medium power users who send us detailed feedback on what we can do better.We employees, readers, writers, editors put in the work, consistently, to try to build a better internet. Its a big goal, but were tackling it one ladder rung at a time, together.In this post, youll get a few different looks into what happened on Medium in 2024 that help illustrate how we all showed up to help build a better internet.First, well have a look at the numbers what stories were the most popular, how many responses you left, and other quantitative metrics. But numbers cant tell the whole story, so well also dive into a more vibes-based look. Youll find a collection of notable stories as well as some great new publications that found their home on Medium. Finally, well include a few Medium-specific updates, like features we launched and milestones we achieved.Heads up this is on the longer side, so settle in for a nice, long read. Zulie @ MediumMedium by the numbersLets start at the top with a few headline stats. In 2024, writers and readers on Medium:Started close to 8 million draftsResponded over 11 million timesCreated 11k new publicationsCurated 46k ListsCame to Medium over 100,000,000 times through recommendations in the Daily or Weekly Digest emailsMost read, responded-to, and clapped-for storiesThese were the stories that our readers found most valuable this year, getting the most reads, responses, and claps.My Statement on President Bidens Announcement by Former President Barack ObamaCommon side effects of not drinking by cultural anthropologist Karolina Kozmana50 Completely True Things by Palestinian-American creative mo husseiniThe secret life of people with high self-control (its easier than you think) by user researcher Riikka IivanainenWeve added 77 countries to the Medium Partner Program by Medium Senior Operations Associate Elvina Fan in The Medium Blogthe art of disappearing by writer remi ;How an empty S3 bucket can make your AWS bill explode by Senior Software Engineer at Semantive Maciej PocwierzThis must be the place by writer Jennifer PahlkaThe Dramatic Shift of the 2024 Paris Olympic Pictograms by game designer and programmer Elijah CobbWhy I Put Pronouns on my Email Signature (and LinkedIn profile) and You Should Too by trans non-fiction writer Max Masure (they/them)The Beauty of Trying by writer thekidultwriter10 Seconds That Ended My 20 Year Marriage by former military wife UnbecomingWords and Phrases that Make it Obvious You Used ChatGPT by Business and Analytics Masters candidate Margaret Efron in Learning DataMost highlighted linesWhen I looked at the most highlighted lines across Medium in 2024 those words that most resonated and stood out to our readers they grouped into a few common themes: self-improvement, understanding others, and understanding yourself. Here are the ideas and words our readers found most worth highlighting this year.Self-improvementPeople with high levels of trait self-control are good at avoiding temptation not resisting it. user researcher Riikka Iivanainen in her story, The secret life of people with high self-control (its easier than you think)Theres a fine line between taking on a worthwhile challenge, and taking on unnecessary stress. brand builder John Gorman in his story Stop Wasting Your TimeThe problem with good habits, in other words, is that they sacrifice intentionality for efficiency. engineer and philosophy student Stephan Joppich, in Pragmatic Wisdom, in his story, Goodbye, Atomic HabitsShowing up. Showing up with your whole self, showing up with your values and beliefs, showing up with what makes you unique, but above all showing up with consistency. writer JA Westenberg in Westenberg, in her story, Just Show Up.Understanding othersIf a persons behavior doesnt make sense to you, it is because you are missing a part of their context. Devon Price, social psychologist, in Human Parts, in his story Laziness Does Not Exist. (This story was published in 2018, but continues to find its readers even now, six years later!)The value of research doesnt come from elevating people who are already shouting. It comes from finding the people who are not being heard, and adding their voices to the conversation. problem designer at AWS Pavel Samsonov in UX Collective, in his story Nikes $25B blunder shows us the limits of data-drivenHonesty is direct, whereas dishonesty tends to be indirect. former detective Joshua Mason in Curated Newsletters, in his story, Im an (Actual) Detective: Here are 7 Signs That Someone Is Lying to YouWe throw our children to the wolves by pretending they will not drink or have sex, which means they have to figure it all out for themselves. former newspaper editor Michelle Teheux in Minds Without Borders, in her story, We Could Learn a Lot About Sex From the DutchUnderstanding yourselfWe are the dark secrets we conceal and the mistakes that we make. We are the love left unexpressed and the unnoticed kindness. writer pahal writes in her story, who are you when nobody is watching?Always remember, whatever flows, flows. What goes away, let go. What comes, comes. Whats lost, let go. And what happens, accept. Better things come when you wait for whats truly meant for you. Accepting things is better than forcing them. Never lose yourself trying to fit into someone elses life. lynwrites in her story, if its meant to be, it will beTheres the risk of true vulnerability: uncertainty. True vulnerability requires that you dont know. You dont know how your share will be received; you dont know how others will perceive you for sharing it; you dont know if theres a happy ending yet. executive coach Ally Sprague in Session Notes, in her story, Fake Vulnerability is Keeping You StuckMost shared across the internetWhen you read a great story, its not enough to keep it to yourself. In 2024, these were the stories that made you think that someone else needed to hear these words, too.The Beauty of Trying by writer thekidultwriterHow to *really* know youre in love by writer Kris Gage (another older story that continues to find readers today!)How I Am Using a Lifetime 100% Free Server by full-stack web developer Harendrathe art of disappearing by writer remi ;Life Lessons I Know at 40 (That I Wish I Knew at 20) by New York Times bestseller Mark MansonThe Art of Not Making a Decision by writer EmilieUltimate Python Cheat Sheet: Practical Python For Everyday Tasks by software engineer Jason Roell in StackademicSuicide is About Wanting to Live by mental health writer odawni in Speaking BipolarUnderstanding LLMs from Scratch Using Middle School Math by Data Science Director and GenAI at Meta Rohit Patel in Towards Data ScienceMedium beyond the numbersBeyond specific most lists, I also wanted to highlight a few stories we were especially proud to be home to in 2024. Heres a look at those, including ones from current events and some more timeless stories:When Crowdstrike went down in July, cybersecurity professional and CrowdStrike customer Kevin Beaumont unpacked the market forces that drove the outage.There are too many incredible stories about generative AI to count, but one of my favorites was professor Mary Roses discussion of how she discovered a third of her online college students were actually AI-powered spambots.In a similar vein, award-winning writer and poet Sierra Elman tried to figure out how well AI could write poetry, recruiting AI experts and English professors to weigh in.Successful, talented, 31-year-old screenwriter David Mandell moved back home with his parents and wrote a beautiful essay about how that move helped him stop putting on a show about who he was to himself and the people he loved.Asheville resident and author Doug Brown wrote about how he handled the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene, the deadliest hurricane to strike the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.Former President Barack Obama shared his annual summer reading and music lists, as well as his statement on President Bidens decision to step down as Democratic nominee.Photographer William Sidnam went to the Paris 2024 Olympics and shared deep, immersive photographs of what was happening in Paris outside the games.When the Supreme Court decided to grant President-elect Donald Trump immunity for official acts, law professor Lessig dived deep to explain that decision in the context of one of the footnotes.Across the pond, the United Kingdom elected the first Labour majority government in over a decade. Retired trade union and pensions campaigner Nigel Stanley analyzed how it happened.Writer and designer Erin Anne spent five months job-hunting and wrote about the 11 things she wished shed known.When President-elect Trump was on trial for charges he falsified business records to cover up a sex scandal while serving as president, New Yorker artist Liza Donnelly entertained us with her artistic depictions of the trial.In Baltimore, the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after being struck by a container ship, causing the deaths of six construction workers. Baltimore resident Ryan Fan wrote a reflection and a tribute to those six men, all immigrants.Jennifer Pahlkas home was broken into by a repeat offender at least, thats one way to see the story. She explores a range of different narratives of the same situation a failure of the police? an indictment of mental health services? crime run wild in Oakland? all of them true.In a beautiful ode to libraries, creative writer Steph Lawson spent 100 days in the library and wrote one hundred Medium stories about her experiences. Heres the first, and heres the last.America enjoyed its first total solar eclipse since 2017. Astronomy science writer Rebecca Jean T. wrote an explainer to everything eclipse enthusiasts needed to know for the big event.The World Wide Web turned 35, and its creator Tim Berners-Lee wrote a retrospective on the origins of the Web, an explanation as to how it had deviated from those original goals, and a call to action to reform and improve it.Smash tournament organizer pidgezero_one read every single one of @drils 10k+ tweets and weighed in on the theory that he sold his accountIn 1989, photographer Tom Zimberoff picked up the phone, called Skywalker Ranch, and asked George Lucas if he could photograph him. Lucas said yes. In 2024, Zimberoff wrote about it.There were so, so many more stories we loved on Medium this year. If you finish this list and are hungry for more amazing stories, take a scroll down our Staff Picks list.New publication spotlightThis year, we became the home of over 11,000 new publications. There are so many standout ones I loved (and check out previous iterations of It Happened on Medium to see a few!). Here are three that resonated particularly with our readers:The Quantastic Journal, a publication about humanity, science, and technology. My personal favorite story: What is a Particle, Really? by Selena RoutleyThe Parenting Portal, a publication about what else? being a parent. One particularly moving story was pedeatrician Aynes Pregnancy Feels Different With GriefIberospherical, a publication that focuses on stories of Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking lands and culture. One to recommend: writer Mario Lpez-Goicoecheas My Name, My Home.It happened at MediumMedium is a huge platform filled with literally millions of stories told by thousands of writers and read by hundreds of millions of readers.But Medium is also a company of around 70 folks who work hard to make Medium (and the internet) a better place. Here are some of the highlights were most proud of.Medium milestonesLike the stories on our platform, its possible to break down notable Medium highlights both by numbers and by vibes. Heres the numbers portion first:Opened the Partner Program to 77 new countries means were able to pay writers from those countries for their storiesReached 2.2 million subscribers on The Medium Newsletter its primary writer, Harris Sockel, picked this issue as his favorite: A better way of thinking about attentionPaid 34% more writers than we did last year through our Partner ProgramRemoved 1.8 million users for violating the Medium Rules, including spam, fraud, plagiarism, and more.Became profitable for the first time in our 12-year historyReached one million Medium membersRan our second annual Medium Day 2024Ran our first Pub Crawl 2024Those milestones couldnt have happened without you, our readers, writers, editors, and members.A peek behind the Median curtain:And now the vibes portion. This year at Medium, we celebrated the following:Our two offsites, one in Portland, Oregon, and one in Scotland.New babies born to Medium employees one of which was my own!Bringing home many new pets.Medians published Medium stories about doing photography with old equipment (Eduardo), buying a treadmill (Sophie Aguado), making haste, but slowly (Scott Lamb), the intersection of programming and parenting (Zouhair Mahieddine), how a journalism background taught her how to a great engineering leader (Melissa DePuydt), the performance of corporate cosplay (Amy Widdowson) and many, many more. Just like our writers, we were also proud to get our stories accepted by our favorite publications and even sometimes Boosted!All in all, it was a year of all of us doing our best to show up with consistency, both at our jobs here at Medium and in our personal lives, too.Photos from our year at MediumWhats coming up in 2025?In December, we shipped eleven projects, all of which get us ready for a big 2025:Continuing to fight spam: Youve seen it, weve seen it, and we all want it gone. More than a third of this months projects were dedicated to getting rid of inauthentic accounts, making it harder to sign up unless youre a real person, and identifying and reducing spammy content on Medium.Prioritizing community: reader responses now appear at the bottom of story pages; editors can Feature stories to share them more widely with their publications followers.Focusing on membership: We ran our holiday gift campaign, emailed old members about coming back to Medium, and set up abandoned cart campaigns.All of these projects, big and small, aim to build a better internet and a Medium thats going to be around tomorrow. In December, we worked hard to make Medium the best home for readers, writers, and publication editors as it can be and 2025 will bring more of the same.Happy 2024! And may 2025 bring even more stories you find meaningful.

Fluoride: a chemical byproduct with a complicated past (and future)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter4 min read2 hours ago-- Welcome back to the Medium NewsletterIssue #231: 2024s video game of the year, a history of hunger strikes, and texting thank yousRecently, government officials and pundits have begun reexamining the use of fluoride in public drinking water. The anti-fluoridation crowd often points to published studies that claim to connect fluoride to a myriad of health risks, including increased cancer rates and, a hot topic right now, lower IQ scores in children.There is plenty about fluorides use in drinking water that can sound like the stuff of conspiracy theories (so much so that it was once invoked in anti-communist propaganda). The fluoride added to our drinking water is often sourced from phosphate companies, which produce fertilizers. Because it is a naturally occurring chemical made of fluorine minerals (its in the periodic table of elements!), fluoride is essentially a byproduct of their mining practices. So, critics are also concerned about the quality of fluoride produced in that way, as well as the pollution caused by those industries. (This also why you may sometimes hear it referred to as an industrial waste.)Fluoridated water is also used to fuel the conversation about governmental overreach or personal choice, as it is difficult or impossible for some to truly opt out of public water that has been fluoridated.Even so, many public health officials are confident that the kind and level of fluoride recommended by regulatory agencies is safe. Critics call those studies about negative health effects and IQ scores unreplicable or irrelevant, as they often are examining a level of fluoride that is at least two times over the suggested maximum amount. (Too much of a good thing may be bad for you? You dont say)Fluoridated water (within healthy limits) is also a public good. After all, the promise of fluoridation was never just about preventing cavities it was about ensuring that everyone, regardless of income, education, or race, could maintain basic dental health, says Dr. Jess Steier, a public health scientist, in a story on Medium.And yet: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Trump administrations nominee for head of the Department of Health and Human Services, has said one of his first official acts will be to advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water. Heres a punch list of facts and resources Im keeping an eye on in the midst of it all:The recommended amount of fluoride to be added to public water is 0.7 parts per million. Overly fluoridated water (above 1.5 parts per million) is not endorsed by any health professional.Internationally, many cities that have defluoridated their water also provide free dental healthcare or provide fluoride in other ways, such as in salt.The act of fluoridating municipal water is not federally mandated. One way to find out whether your local water system has fluoride is to check the CDCs website, My Waters Fluoride, but some states may have their own resources.Personally, Id love to know more about how fluoride is purified before it enters our water systems. What about you? What concerns do you have about the dental health of our communities, and what solutions do you want to see?More around the webLast week, Astro Bot (a video game about a robot obsessed with reclaiming parts of a Playstation 5 from a green alien) (yes, its that meta) was honored as The Game Awards Game of the Year. Ben Ulansey shares some context as to why it grabbed the gaming communitys adoration in these times: Its a smile-inducing band-aid on a planet that feels sometimes like its bursting apart at its seams. (Fanfare)Ive been watching the FX show Say Nothing, which is based on the real story of two women volunteers for the IRA who performed a hunger strike while they were imprisoned by the British in the 1970s. John Oakes, author of The Fast: The History, Science, and Philosophy of Doing Without, adapted some of his research into a post for the Hell World newsletter. In it, he explores the history of this political action, describing it as jiu-jitsu politics that inverts the power structure and can undermine authority more effectively than a bomb.Sonification is the act of bringing infographics to life through sound. Its a part of pursuing a multi-modal strategy of learning, which can be especially effective in improving memorization skills. Dont believe me? Give a listen to the examples featured in this Medium story by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) for an unforgettable way of learning about the intensity of black holes or how galaxies are formed.A dose of practical wisdomI recently attended a webinar that featured a conversation with Amy Blankson, author of The Future Of Happiness, who shared a few extremely useful strategies for managing stress and increasing optimism in day-to-day life. My favorite: scroll through your phones contact list and find seven people in your social circle that you appreciate and text one person per day to thank them. The list and the scope helps with decision fatigue; once you have the list in front of you, youll find it hard to not do it. (Im on day 5, and its working!)

Aging makes you more yourselfPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter4 min read4 hours ago-- Were back with the Medium NewsletterIssue #230: silly days, weird color combos, and the fundamental attribution errorEver since turning 38, my favorite line to deliver with confidence is: Actually, Im almost 40. I smirk, ready to feed off people trying to shhh this fact away as if they were swatting a fly off my head. But you look so young!! And thank you, that was the point of this statement my quest to look and feel younger as I round a new decade.Aging is something I think about constantly. The World Health Organization has confirmed people are living longer, which makes me entertain the idea of taking The Substance even more. I think about aging when someone tells me about their high-interest savings account or that they need to call a roofer or that they just booked a trip to Japan or even that its a Tuesday night and they have plans. How old are they to be doing this stuff? Am I that age too? Have I passed that age? I need to contextualize myself as a single, childless renter in the midst of whatever story theyre telling me so I can feel slightly better about the clock ticking down to a colonoscopy appointment. My compulsion to defend the choices Ive made is also not innate comparing ourselves to others is actually a socially conditioned construct. Studies show there is a strong correlation between frequent comparison and heightened levels of depression and anxiety (about aging, among other things). Its so fun.However, just like therapist Crystal Jackson on Medium, part of me is ready for the Freedom of the Feral Forties. As Jackson writes, this is the decade for writing your own rules, getting weirder, and becoming even more yourself. The clock cannot be stopped, she explains, Im suddenly curious to see myself at all the ages Im fortunate enough to reach.Im also very aware that getting older comes with its downsides. My mom always says theres nothing golden about your golden years and Rodney Lacroixs Countdown to Extinction: A Top Ten List of the Worst Parts of Getting Old is proof (and it has me wondering if my mom is getting paid to ghostwrite these days).The scariest thing about aging, to me, is not my lack of a Roth IRA but the compounding loss I experience each year. More and more parents of close and childhood friends are dying. Friends are leaving doctors offices with scary, ugly diagnoses. All the pets my friends got in their twenties are now crossing the rainbow bridge. Ive never experienced as much tangential loss as I have this year alone. As coach Ronke Babajide, Ph.D., observes in That Thing We Always Forget About Aging, every day brings us closer to losing the people closest to us. A poignant read that reminds me how limited time is for those close to me the more we blow out the candles. What else were readingEvin Ibrahim and her husband, who is Syrian, react to the fall of former president Bashar al-Assad: I actually feel myself wanting to help rebuild my country. (Age of Empathy)Complementary colors (opposite on the color wheel, e.g. blue and orange) tend to dominate design, but halfway color combos (blue-green and purple) can feel more emotional and evocative. (Ruxandra Duru, Bootcamp)Its easy to be cynical about blatantly commercial awareness days (today is Maple Syrup Day, FYI, and everything I can find about it sounds like SEO bait). But! Dan Brotzel spent 365 days celebrating fake holidays and it kind of changed his life? He leaned into the silliness of Talk Like a Pirate Day, took full advantage of Eat a Bagel Day, and used some Days as excuses to chat up people hed never meet otherwise. On their respective Days, I had wonderful conversations with all sorts: a hermit, a lighthouse keeper, a town crier, a stationery fetishist. (Human Parts) Your daily dose of practical wisdomThe fundamental attribution error is our human tendency to think everyones out to get us basically, we overemphasize personal intentions and underemphasize how much everyones just responding to their circumstances. Most things are not about you.

How to publish your academic writing on MediumReach a wider, non-academic audience on Medium by adapting your thesis, dissertation, or research paperPublished inThe Medium Blog10 min readJust now--Image created by Jason CombsMedium is a great home for academic writers. Its easy to write and publish your work quickly; theres an engaged audience of thoughtful, curious readers; and our features are geared towards helping you find your community.While theres nothing stopping you from copy-paste-publishing your doctorate thesis on Medium, weve found that the best-received academic work on Medium has a few elements in common. This guide will walk you through a few points to keep in mind as you adapt your writing to find a new audience on Medium.Why publish your academic work on Medium?A lot of academic writing never gets published. What does get published often doesnt get a big readership, especially not beyond its niche audience. If it does happen to make headlines, its often misunderstood. This is frustrating when all you want to do is share your research with readers who are most likely to be interested in it.Another way to get your writing to the public is to publish it yourself and many scholars do just that, sharing their work on social media platforms like X and Threads, or hosting their own blogs. The problem with those methods is that it can be tough to build an audience that will read that work. Plus, research doesnt always lend itself well to a character-limited format.Thats what makes Medium such a great platform to publish your academic work. We already have 100 million monthly readers who love thoughtful, nuanced discussions. We have niche, specific publications that have built a community about topics as specialized as the convergence of politics, policy, and ideas to paleontology. And our editor is incredibly simple to use just type and hit publish.I loved how former academic and current science communicator Silvia PM, PhD put it in her post about how shed use Medium as a tool to connect with people beyond the academic bubble. If I had a lab again, Id see Medium as more than just another social media platform, Id see it as a bridge. A bridge between science and society, between data and decision-making, and between curiosity and understanding. A bridge to support a successful career for myself and my students.Heres what to keep in mind as you adapt your work to fit well on Medium.Pick a single pointNo matter if youre thinking about publishing your dissertation or your lab presentation slides on Medium, its worth deciding on a single point you want to drive home and focusing on that. If youre thinking of your thesis, pick a single chapter. If youre adapting a paper, clearly define its main argument.For example, I wrote my Masters dissertation on trends in bird species extinction and extirpation during the Anthropocene a pretty wide subject matter! If I wanted to repurpose that research and writing for Medium, Id start not just with a single chapter, but a single finding within a chapter. In my case, I found a strong correlation between bird body mass and the likelihood of the species not just surviving but expanding into new countries, and could write about that. Another possible example is taking the abstract of your research paper, or an excerpt that summarizes the findings simply.Read over the work youre thinking of repurposing and mine it for ideas. Jot down as many as you feel are compelling, but then pick just one to focus on for publishing on Medium.Remember the audienceYoure already used to changing how you present your ideas depending on who youre presenting to. If youre a postdoc writing a grant proposal to get funding for your idea, youll handle that differently from writing up that research into a paper youre submitting to Nature Cell Biology, for instance, or presenting it to your labmates.Adapting your work to Medium is no different. Were home to curious, intelligent readers who like getting deep dives rather than hot takes. But those readers arent going to share your background knowledge in your subject matter.As an experiment, pretend youre sharing this with a sibling or a parent someone who cares a lot about what you do and may already be familiar with the main notes, but who wont capture the nuance without you explaining it. Read it aloud and see how it sounds.Its also good to consider the visual look of your Medium story. While academic work tends to be on the denser side, both in terms of the style and the paragraph length, we find readers on Medium like some white space to have a chance to digest new ideas as they read.Revisit your titleWere not about clickbait, and neither are our readers, so dont worry you wont need to publish your work on Medium with a title like Scientists Just Unveiled a Radical Approach to Tracking Dengue Mosquitoes HATE Them!But, A new lineage nomenclature to aid genomic surveillance of dengue virus, might not mean much to your readers, either.Try to aim for a middle ground: a title that explains your research in a way thats clear to lay readers, and gives them a reason to read your work. Its also good practice to tie this back to the why you worked on earlier.In the paper I linked above, it might be relevant to highlight how to help scientists track dengue and prevent another global epidemic like COVID-19, or discuss how vaccines are developed for other diseases.Looking for inspiration? I loved Andrea Corpolongo, Ph.D.s article on how to write better titles for space articles.Make it relevantTo you, of course your research is the most relevant and interesting thing! However, our readers will benefit from a bit of framing around why theyre going to be interested in it. You can do this in one of two ways:Position your research in terms of current events. If youve had a strong reaction to an article in the news, for example, based on your research, thats a great direction to go in.Show how your research applies to a more evergreen topic. For example, Dr. Pine uses her expertise to explain how teeth fossils help us understand why human childhood lasts so long.Include this positioning in the introduction to ensure readers immediately grasp why they should be interested in your work.Include your authorityMedium readers want to know why they should trust the writer. Sharing your academic expertise years you spent in your lab, any professional experience, your titles can help them know why youre an authority they can rely on.Its great to put this in your profile name and bio so readers can see it at a glance when theyre deciding whether to read your article. You can also weave it into your work. This can be explicit As a researcher in this subject for five years, for example but it doesnt have to be. As long as your expertise is clear by your familiarity with your subject matter, youll build trust with your readers.For example, Harlan Brothers starts his Medium story by writing, Back in 2013, I had been thinking about prime numbers and novel ways of searching for hidden patterns in their progression. This story is adapted from his much more technical paper in World Scientific, Using IFS to Reveal Biases in the Distribution of Prime Numbers.Include (and explain!) any visualsFeel free to reuse any slides, graphs, or other images from your academic work in your Medium story. Just make sure to explain it clearly and add alt text to make sure visually impaired readers can still benefit from your visuals.On Medium, most writers also choose to add a feature image to make their work more eye-catching and help give readers an idea of what their story is about at a glance. These show up on the homepage, app, email digests, and other story feeds. Feel free to grab a royalty-free photo from a site like Unsplash, or use an original image that relates directly to your research.As an example, check out these simple-but-illustrative images Associate Professor F. Perry Wilson, MD MSCE used to explain why he thinks polygenic risk scores might be unreliable predictors.Adapt your citation formatCiting your sources is a non-negotiable, rich academic tradition. However, on Medium, readers arent as used to having the text interrupted by citation parentheticals. To provide a smoother reader experience, you could opt for hyperlinks, or go for a numerical citation method like this [1] and include your references at the bottom of your story.Use publications and tagsMedium has a few tools to help make sure your story finds the readers who are most likely to be interested in it: publications and tags.First, lets talk about publications. Publications are a great Medium tool to help your story reach its intended audience. Any Medium member can create a publication about any topic they like and many academics on Medium already have, which you can check out on this list. You can also search through all Medium publications by keyword using the Chill Subs directory. Readers on Medium follow publications to get curated stories about those specific subjects.If you dont find a publication that looks like a good fit and think you might publish more than one piece on Medium, you can always create your own publication.Publications, since theyre run by everyday Medium users, can have unique submission guidelines that vary from pub to pub. When you find a publication youre interested in, check their submission guidelines to find the best way to be added as a writer. Once youve been added, you can submit your story to the pub using the top three dots and submit to publication. Heres a help document with more information.When youre ready to submit or publish your story, youll have the chance to add five tags that describe what your story is about. That helps inform our recommendation system to guide your story to readers who are most likely to be interested in it. Go broad rather than narrow. For example, if youre writing about paleontology, use science as a tag. You can check out our list of topics for inspiration.Get feedback from your peersWhile Medium doesnt offer a real peer review, we do have two other sources for getting community input: private notes and comments.If you want to get feedback on your story before going live, you can share a draft link with a friend. Theyll be able to leave private notes that only you and they can see with any thoughts, suggestions, and questions.Once your story is published, you might get comments from readers. You can always edit your story after publishing to address anything your commenters brought up, or you can reply in a comment thread with them.As a reader, I loved seeing Owen Schaefers comments on Harlan Brotherss Medium storyOf course, youre in full control of your comment section. If you want to turn comments off entirely, thats up to you. You can also hide individual comments if theyre not adding anything to the conversation.Share with othersMany academics use Medium as a quick place to publish and then share with their own students, classmates, or peers. You can always post your work on our open platform and share a link to X, via email, or any other social media platform you want.Screenshot taken by authorDecide whether to paywallWhen you publish on Medium, youll choose whether or not to paywall your story. Our paywall exists because we dont have ads. Instead, were supported by paying members. When a paying Medium member reads a story, a portion of their membership goes to the writer.If you want your writing to be freely accessible by everyone, dont paywall it. If youd like to earn some money for your writing, you can paywall it as long as youre a Medium member.You dont have to choose between the two. If you want to paywall your story but still share it with other friends or family who dont have Medium membership, you can share your story with a friend link. Anyone with a friend link can bypass the paywall.Have funLast but not least, have fun. Medium readers respond to your genuine passion and interest in your subject. They may not be experts, but they love hearing from people who are.The academic pieces that do best on Medium are those where your personality comes through and youre enthused about your research that enthusiasm is contagious to our readers.Use casesHere are some of the kinds of academic writing that can be adapted and repurposed on Medium:Chapters or specific ideas from dissertations and thesesPublished workAn excerpt from your bookPapers that didnt end up publishedPapers that were publishedSocial media threadsLab presentationsConference presentationsAn idea you might want to flesh out before you commit to writing a whole paper on itA response to work someone else publishedIn short, almost any kind of writing, published or not, can be turned into a great, valuable Medium story. Hopefully, this guide gives you a starting point and some guidance on how to turn your academic writing into a Medium story.

How to take stock of the year that wasPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- As we mentioned way back in February, the futures coming sooner than you think.Issue #229: the new rules of media + a cooking tipIn T-15 days it will be 2025. Years are artificial, human-created markers of time, but they serve a purpose they give life shape.I try to take some time during dead week (the week between Christmas and New Years) to figure out where Im going and what I can do better. On Friday, I shared leadership coach Tutti Taygerlys year-end questionnaire, which is basically a list of journaling prompts. A few: Which relationships of yours grew the most this year? Where did you build unexpected trust? Which behaviors have you let go of?Inspired by that, I went looking for more succinct ways to take stock of your year. Rochelle Deans suggests looking back through wherever you naturally document your life (texts, sent emails, posts to your social media platform of choice, your photos app) and identifying highlights and lowlights.Or, if you want a mnemonic, business strategist Dev Singh has a dead-simple acronym, the Four Ls:Loved: When did you feel most alive this year? What did you genuinely enjoy?Longed: What did you want this year? What didnt materialize? What disappointed you?Loathed: What did you hate? What felt like a waste of time?Lessons: What did you learn? What do you still have to learn?Lastly, in a Medium story from a few years back, executive coach Andrea Mignolo encouraged everyone to write a letter for yourself to read a year from now (i.e., at the end of 2025). Theres really no wrong way to write this. You can tell your future self what youre committed to, excited about, or nervous about. Seal it up and dont open it until this time next year.Whatever your end-of-year ritual (or none), remember: How you end the year is how the next one begins. Harris Sockel 3 of my open tabsThe new rules of media: Most people are less obsessed with news and newness than journalists think. (One Thing)A response to last Wednesdays issue on ChatGPTs favorite words, which should really be a Medium post of its own: William Bennett, who taught a course on sci-fi at Tufts, articulates ChatGPTs Achilles heel better than I could. GPT fails at subtext because subtext depends on being aware of other selves, or creating a we situation where both you and I have something unspoken at stake.Bestselling novelist Tao Lin records himself writing a 12,000-word essay about his cat and narrates his editorial decisions along the way (like splitting large, unwieldy paragraphs into smaller ones). Its meditative to watch another writers keystrokes. In the words of one commenter, thanks for sharing your writing and editing process, your thoughts, the beautiful classical music and the sound of nature and insects outside and the rain. Your daily dose of practical wisdomTo boil eggs whose shells slide off elegantly, please for the love of breakfast listen to J. Kenji Lopez Alt, whos done more tests on egg boiling than anyone. Gently nestle them into about one inch of boiling water and leave them there, lid on, for nine minutes. (This changed my life. Id been doing it wrong for years.)

ChatGPTs favorite words & punctuationPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min read2 days ago-- 20 more days until 2025Issue #226: Nikki Giovanni. Sora. Luigi.Following up on last weeks issue re: two years of ChatGPT, Ive been thinking about something. How do you know, on a word or sentence level, when someones used it? What are the tells? What separates this is kinda formulaic writing from this is definitely AI?As you may remember from a previous newsletter, GPT loves to delve. Its preference for overly formal, vaguely British language is a well-documented result of being trained by workers in Nigeria, where delve is used in a business context far more than in the U.S. or anywhere else. A few more tells, via Jordan Gibbs who analyzed 1 million words from the machine and published his results on Medium:TirelesslyCannotReimaginedIntertwineIntricateTapestryExpanseKaleidoscopicA more recent analysis corroborates these findings, and adds a few more words. Pivotal. Vital. Comprehensive. ChatGPT also imitates certain syntax patterns common among smart-sounding writing, like em dashes and colons in titles.Theres a deeper pattern Ive noticed, though: ChatGPT cant write well in first-person. By well I dont just mean clearly. I mean the type of first-person writing where you feel like theres a real human behind the words. (This is a great example of writing that felt 100% human to me.) One way humans do that show other people were human, not automatons is by telling jokes, but ChatGPT kind of fails at being funny. I mean, its fine at dad jokes (one-liners, puns, predictable humor) but its terrible at a type of humor that is uniquely human: subtext. Humor that says more than what words alone convey. An example: Sarah Coopers 10 tricks to appear smart in meetings, which communicates nuanced subtext about corporate conformity.Journalist Will Lockett writes: As ChatGPT doesnt actually know what it is writing, it cant have the self-aware, helicopter view of writing needed to create great subtext. ChatGPT might be able to riff on a theme, but it doesnt have the societal and self-awareness to come up with those themes in the first place. Harris Sockel Also today: Nikki Giovanni. Sora. Luigi.Nikki Giovanni poet, teacher, activist, and Grammy nominee passed away on Monday. She was 81. At the peak of her career, in the 60s and 70s, Giovanni openly admitted that most people dont read poetry, so she recorded her 1971 debut album, Truth Is on Its Way, with a Gospel choir. At the time, writes Duke Professor Mark Anthony Neal, I didnt fully understand the genius of Giovannis vision she was blatantly trying to bring the profane in conversation with the sacred, two decades before Kirk Franklin and later Kanye West would bring ghetto theodicy to the top of the pop charts.OpenAI launched a new tool, Sora, that allows you to input a few sentences and generate a video. We can all be filmmakers now, even without a camera. (Maybe well feed a few of these newsletters to Sora so you can watch them?)Luigi Mangione suspected UnitedHealth CEO assassin emailed a friend earlier this year to rail against the lack of civil disobedience in Japan, which seems foreboding (to me). Your daily dose of practical wisdom: on creativityA gem from one of my favorite books (which I really need to read again), Oliver Burkemans Four Thousand Weeks: When you no longer demand perfection from your creative work, your relationships, or anything else, thats when youre free to plunge energetically into them.