This week’s issue examines how brands are responding to a shared tension: audiences are overwhelmed by volume, automation, and synthetic sameness, yet still deeply responsive to stories that feel intentional, human, and culturally fluent. Google turns AI adoption into nostalgic rivalry. Lego reframes AI fear through trust and education. Equinox rejects synthetic imagery by making
I had the privilege of delivering a keynote speech at TechChill about a topic that feels more urgent every year: storytelling in a crisis. The last time I attended TechChill was in 2020, and it was the final conference I went to before the pandemic. Returning to the stage with a new talk felt fitting,
Take a step back and imagine the past week in your life. Chances are, it’s also been filled with stories. When we as humans come together, we may share a few facts and data points, but more often than not, stories are at the center of how we communicate, relate to one another, share and
This week’s issue is a tour of how brands win by matching story to setting. Duolingo turns a mascot into retail theater in Tokyo. LinkedIn rides the Wrapped wave and discovers the emotional risk of year-end scorecards. Instagram signals a shift from polished feeds to raw signals in an AI-saturated world. Louis Vuitton proves how
I don’t tend to measure years by how busy they were. I measure them by what changed. How my thinking evolved. Where my energy shifted. What I stopped tolerating. What became clearer than ever. 2025 sharpened my point of view. It reinforced what I believe about storytelling, leadership, and growth. It pushed me into bigger