Hey, friends. So many people flagged that ☝️ quote for me from Mary Meeker's latest Internet Trends report that I feel compelled to lift my sword and saddle up my dragon to defend writers and readers everywhere.

Mary's report (as always) is a solid look at the technology stats and trends that shape modern life. But that quote...? Sweet lord. Where to begin.

 

For now, let's hop over the annoying past tense ("was") and land smack on the word "hack."

To "hack" here means to improvise a temporary, inelegant, but effective solution to a problem. In this case, the "hack" of writing was key to the "problem" of advancing modern human civilization and commerce.

(Or: How might we remember how many sheep Shamsi sold in Mesopotamia last quarter...? Should we maybe write it down?)

But we don't need that hack anymore—nosiree! Finally behind us are those grim years of the Mahabharata, the Talmud, the Bible, Homeric verse, Shakespeare, The Great Gatsby, Harry Potter, Charlotte's Web.

Good riddance. The bores.

Imagine if Anne Frank had just posted Instagram updates instead of writing in that diary...?

Imagine if we scrolled Pinterest kitchen backsplashes with our toddlers at bedtime...?

To prove how truly valuable and effective images are, Mary included this photo in her report:

One the left is a duck, leaping. On the right,1,000 words describing a duck leaping.

 

See how hackish, ugly, useless words are...? Especially when they are made uglier still by refusing them white space or a font made for actual human eyeballs?

 

Life is so much better now that images are taking over for text.

I'm thrilled that the cognitive load on my brain has been significantly lightened!

I'm kidding. But only just.

We've heard all this before: Almost exactly three years ago, when Facebook's Nicola Mendelsohn said writing was dead. Replaced, she said then, by video.

* * *

Listen, I get it. I love Instagram. We all do. I love the stories, the posts. I love the mix of personal and business: how Instragram has almost singlehandedly spawned an entire commerce ecosystem, mulched liberally with influencers and social-media celebrities.

But to say that writing as a result is now unloved, cast out, jilted at the altar of mass communication...? No.

Because we'll scroll through Instagram. And we'll also read books at the beach this summer.

 

Because we'll browse kitchen backsplashes. And we also know that good writing doesn't just communicate ideas; it generates them, as Paul Graham says.

To say that one is dead… sorry, I mean one was a hack… is binary, either/or thinking.

 

* * *

I wince when business leaders say that ___ is dead. But I also wonder what this word vs. images "debate" says about us, and how it shapes our ability to hold two diverging truths at once.

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." —F. Scott Fitzgerald

Must we as a culture polarize everything?

If one thing is good, does that mean another is bad?

If you are right, does that mean I am wrong?

Mary predicts that Instagram will have 117.2 million users by 2021. I read that and I thought: Is 117 million a lot...?

It is, it turns out. It's about a third of the entire US population.

It's also the exact number of Americans who didn't vote in the 2016 presidential election. That doesn't really have direct relevance here. I just thought it was an interesting coincidence.

Live-Editing Mary's Report

I wish Kevin had taken the opportunity to be more nuanced in his view of images + writing. Or I wish Mary had.

But she didn't. So let's live-edit Kevin's quote on the slide in her deck:

"People have always been visual—our brains are wired for stories. Words have been one way to paint a picture in a mind. Now we increasingly have another way to tell stories... a way that harkens to prehistoric pictorial communication. This gives us rich, new creative opportunities. We are coming full circle, I suppose."

 

📈 Mary Meeker's entire 333-page 2019 Internet Trends report is worth a read.

📉 Too much to digest? Oneupweb has read it for you, and it has delivered the eight things you need to know from it.

 

Here are a few other things I thought worth sharing this week.

1
In the Fallow

I'm on the coast of Maine this week, on vacation.

The wifi password at the only restaurant in town is PUTDOWNTHEPHONETALKTOYOURFAMILY. (Not kidding.)

A recent piece in the NY Times calls what I'm doing this week "fallow time." Bonnie Tsui reframes regular down time as a part of a creative life—not apart from it.

"Fallow time is necessary to grow everything from actual crops to figurative ones, like books and children. To do the work, we need to rest, to read, to reconnect. It is the invisible labor that makes creative life possible."

In other words: we are doing something important when we are doing nothing important. And practicing fallow time isn't just nice; it's necessary: We need to slow down sometimes to speed up at other times, as I've been writing and speaking about this year.

 

Love seeing this topic covered in the mainstream press more and more.

2
Now and Ten

Ten words. That's how many words people absorb when they see your email, ad, blog post, says the national treasure that is Seth Godin.

"Highlight the ten of the 1,000 you've written. Which ten do you want someone to scan so that they're intrigued enough to slow down and read the rest?"

 

What does your content look like when you scan it?

3
Power Move: Writing Better Emails

What we write in email is often so easily misconstrued. Why is that? I wrote a piece for Emma Email on my hunch on why I think that is, with practical advice on how to write more powerful emails.

 

 👉 👉 👉 Go deeper: Litmus just released a brand-new report on the state of email engagement: When, where, and how people read the emails you write. Three interesting takeaways, the first of which relates to Seth's 10 Words advice above:

Full report here. (Reg. required.)

4
Are You a Good Storyteller? Try This Test. 

Try this "cocktail party" to test your own storytelling skills in three easy steps. [h/t Ron Ploof]

 

 

Ron Ploof is one of three keynotes at the Storytelling Summit, a brand-new online event for marketers by MarketingProfs: 12 sessions with 12 speakers we consider the best in the world at teaching businesses how to tell better stories to engage the people who matter most to them.

Also featuring Nancy Duarte. Bobby Lehew. Andrew Davis. Ron Ploof. Clay Hebert. Get in for less with discount code ANNSENTME.

 

QUICKIES

🎙️ The Atlantic's Daily Idea is a brand-new smart-speaker series from the Atlantic magazine. Every weekday, the magazine offers a condensed, two-minute read of a new Atlantic story designed for your smart home speaker, like Amazon Alexa or Google Home. This is a smart way for long-form old media to reimagine itself for short-form new media.

✍️ Your tech guide to being a more effective, efficient freelance writer. Solid advice on technology for writing, editing, note-taking, transcription, recording interviews, finance.

CONTENT TOOLS

✅ FYI includes over 300+ free marketing templates and resources across 16 categories of Marketing. It's a lot. But it's one to bookmark. [h/t Carney] Speaking of FYI...

 

✅ Power Words is my favorite resource there. It'll help you be more adventurous in your writing.

 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"When the story makes you swell up and you can't quite fit in your body again, you know it's a good story." —David Sedaris

I'm a massive David Sedaris fan. Mitch Joel shared this conversation between David and our mutual friend Neil Pasricha. Worth a listen.

📚 Then go buy David's last book of essays. (Good Fallow Time reading!)

 

DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS

Try this trend-guessing game. I was mostly terrible at it.

 

 LOVE LETTERS 
Shouts from around the internet.