Redefine our concept of what we need

Mouthfeel is a term from the culinary world. It means that the brand name can be said with ease and satisfaction of pronunciation. It’s not awkward to express, doesn’t contain baggage, and won’t cause word aversion or negative connotation for the customer. Vaudeville performers were the first professionals to officially practice this tradition, using words with the hard k sounds, because they knew they were simply funnier to audiences. To quote the immortal playwright, cupcake is funny, tomato is not...

Friday has statistically been proven to be the least productive day of the work week. One study from a project management software company analyzed a data set of nearly two million projects and twenty eight million tasks from their user base. Their research found that, big surprise, the last day of the week was twenty percent less productive than the first. Another study of two thousand office workers found that the majority of staff mentally winds things down well before...

I’ve always felt that teamwork was overrated. Not unimportant, just overrated. Most companies agree that it sounds meaningful from a cultural standpoint, and no organization is naive enough to build their employer brand around not working together. But too much needless collaboration can have an adverse effect. If all people do is attend meetings and send instant messages to each other all day, it leaves them little time for all the important work they need to complete independently. Dilbert once...

As startups scale, connectivity suffers. When a growth stage company expands in headcount, say, from single to double digits, the complexion of the culture can't help but change. The more people there are, the less connected employees will feel to each other. You simply won't be able to know who everybody is anymore. It's harder to keep track of each other and the sense of community diminish. Even if you do know everybody's name on the team, you still don't...

Seinfeld did a number of episodes about illogical social obligations and the unwritten rules of human interaction. The one that stands out is when the gang spends their entire evening preparing to attend a dinner party of a couple they don't even really like. They schlep their way around the city through the freezing cold night, searching for a coveted, overpriced cake, annoying store owners by accidentally breaking wine bottles, disrupting customers while waiting in line, and causing a traffic...