Vol. 3, Issue 2: In Defense of the Zeitgeist
As Jim Anchower would say, “it’s been a while since I rapped at you,”* but it’s been a busy year so far and I’m sure you feel the same way. As I’ve said in the past, it seems like there’s no time that isn’t busy anymore, but I’m not certain if that’s a function of the fact that I’m older or if it’s a function of things just being busier/more connected, etc. As with everything else, it’s probably both.
*Since January 19, to be precise
But because I have the day off today*, I was driving my kids to school this morning and I got to thinking. I try to spend a lot of time on gratitude, but the reality is that I spend the vast majority of my time on things that aren’t functioning or things that I want to do because they’re hanging over me. You can have gratitude for the luxury of having things that you want to accomplish, of course, but that’s really difficult to keep in context.
*One of the many great perks about working at OpenX is that most traditional 3-day weekends in the US are turned into 4-day weekends. You should work here!
Here’s an example: we were dog-sitting this week and the dog needed to go out. And because I turn into a sloth after I walk through the door for the last time after the sun goes down, I didn’t want to take him on an actual walk, so I opened the back door and let him go in the backyard, while I hung out outside. While I was outside, I looked around and said (out loud, because I’m a little crazy) “why is it so dark back here?” That’s a pretty stupid question for a lot of reasons. The primary answer is because the sun isn’t out and the secondary (more relevant) one is that I haven’t installed enough artificial light back there. So (ugh) add another thing to the list of things that I want to do.
Another example: the news*. The news is the world is so bad that if I started this newsletter with “let’s talk about what’s going on in the world,” you’d click out of it immediately. Either you don’t care (valid), you get your news elsewhere (far more valid) or you’re exhausted (SUPER valid).
*I’m not gonna talk about the news.
So let’s talk about things that are good today. Let’s operate in defense of the zeitgeist*. Honestly, there are a lot of things that pop into my head all of the time where I say to myself, “that’s pretty cool”
*When I get around to my memoir, “In Defense of the Zeitgeist” is one of the many working titles. “It Takes a Special Kind of Crazy” is also one.
My son is nearly 11. This is 2024. I was 11 in (gulp) let’s just say “the 80s”. He spends a lot of time figuring out how the titles of the songs on the radio could be turned into Weird Al Yankovic songs, which is pretty much what I spent a lot of time doing when I was 11. So hey, Weird Al, great job! Somehow, that man has stayed not just relevant, but top of mind, for wide swaths of the population for well over 40 years.
I pick my daughter up at her high school a lot. Here’s something really cool about high school these days. Way more than when I was a kid, and FAR more than when my parents were kids, being atypical or not the same as the rest of the kids is accepted. I’m not going to run down a list of things and I’m also not saying people don’t get picked on anymore or frankly don’t have far more to worry about from a mental health perspective, but outside looking in, the kids are alright. They understand what it means to be “other” and that’s really cool to me.
I don’t go to an office, but I have a great deal of opportunity to see my colleagues on my computer and in person at events. Office culture is real and it’s difficult to ignore the social benefits, but to a person, everyone is exceptionally kind, caring, interested in you personally and understanding of what’s going on with you. It’s hard for me to generalize that to all offices, but I’m going to, because I want to believe that people can continue to function, check in, be present and appreciate their co-workers, even if that’s remote, even if it’s sometimes challenging and even if the work can be difficult on our best days.
We have a massively complex ecosystem in programmatic advertising: data providers, demand tech, supply tech, sellers, buyers, verification tools, measurement - the list goes on and on and on. But somehow, I can still sit down in front of my TV, turn it on, watch some amazing programming and get a contextually or addressably relevant ad on my screen. All of those technologies aren’t perfect, but they do work together. And the market dynamics of understanding the eyeballs watching the TV and executing a transaction that delivers the right ad to me is a marvel. We built this. There are things we need to fix and evolve, but we built this thing.
And to that point, when I was young and I missed an episode of my favorite TV show, I had to wait until the summer to watch the episode I missed. And if that was a serial show, like Twin Peaks, I was screwed. I do not have this problem anymore and neither do you. Everything and anything we want to watch* is available to us at the click of a button.
I try to push my kids to work in what I call the 10% rule - which is “however hard you tried last time, try 10% harder this time”. That’s not always possible. They’re not always able. And I’m proud of them however they perform. But I always encourage them to try just a bit harder than they did the last time. I love the 10% rule. I’m terrible at being present for it myself. But I love it.
*Except the movie PCU for some reason
This was, as I read back, relentlessly positive. That actually feels pretty good, if a bit saccharine. As you go into your long holiday weekend and you’re enjoying whatever it is you do, think about all of this - the times we live in, the world we’ve got and maybe when you get to the top of the ski lift and you look out over the hill for the last run of the day as the sun goes down, you’ll be able to feel your own gratitude.
I’m gonna take a minute here to say RIP to Alexei Navalny - just 47 years old. May we all be as brave as he was in standing up to the injustice we see.
That’s all for this week, friends. Until next time.