Friday Weekly May 9, 2025

We had a different topic lined up this week, but Kunal flew to visit his parents in India and unfortunately things are, uh, not great over there right now. He and his family are still safe at the moment, but there is a lot of uncertainty with the power and internet. More than that though, Kunal is too nice a guy to say no when I bother him with questions, and I just want him to not worry about us over here for a few minutes. Well, he might be worried once this email gets sent, but before then he’ll have fewer worries. Schrödinger’s worry. 

So, we’ll get back to that other topic later. Since the monkey is running the zoo today, I hope maybe those of you out there who read this every week can help me with a question I think about a lot. We can call it Philosophical Friday. 

I apologize in advance. This one is a bit long, but you can go to the bottom of this block if you want to skip my thoughts. 

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I’m a bit of a recluse, so this whole Work From Home thing has been pretty great in a lot of ways, but one of the parts that is difficult is making decisions about what other people want or like. In this particular case, do the people who open this email prefer to read something a little offbeat that maybe tells a good story or is “fun” to read? Or do they want something straightforward and to the point about various audio-related topics? 

I can debate and make logical arguments against myself all day, but an echo only goes so far. 

There’s one popular opinion that says the general public doesn’t know what they want until they see it, but that seems a pretty pessimistic take on people. And even if it is true about the “general” public, I’d like to think more highly of this little bubble of a community here. 

I remember a study that basically boiled down to, “When it comes to speaking/singing, it’s 70% how you sound, 25% how you look, and 5% what you say.” The point being that when you watch someone speak or have a conversation in person, the actual words mean very little. Context, personal mannerisms, social cues, setting, and so on, are what’s really important. They all influence what you actually hear despite the words being said.

So what does that mean if you strip away how you sound and look? We obviously can’t just inflate “what you say” to 100% since if that were true there would be no miscommunication, and if you’ve ever been on the internet before then you know that’s definitely not the case. Assuming the person writing knows what they’re trying to say and are writing it properly, then it would make sense that the only thing that really matters at that point is the person reading it. What do all of their life experiences up to that point tell them about the words they’re consuming? What mood are they in, do they have a different understanding of a word or saying, how do they feel about the source, what’s the subject, and a million other nuances. 

I can do my best to convey my natural voice which to me is a light brevity and implies casual conversation. But to someone else I might sound dismissive or even duplicitous. I can even tell you as bluntly as possible, “Hey this is just for fun. You don’t have to look any deeper.”

But can it be an email from a guy in marketing and still be received as authentic? 

I have no idea. The ego part of me just likes to write words and share thoughts thinking someone else might find it interesting and reply. The self doubt says no one could possibly care. The pragmatic part thinks, sure some might care, but this email should be for the majority and not the few. But the ego comes back in again to whisper, "build it and they will come."

If you have any thoughts or opinions I’d love to hear them though. Or you can take this one question survey and let me know which style you prefer more.

Completely unrelated, but I’m also working to update the email subscribe system so you can better pick and choose which emails you get.