Doing

How I’m Managing My 2025 Channel Strategy

So, it’s some­how 2025 and *extreme­ly Jim Anchow­er voice* it’s been a while since I rapped at ya.

How was 2024? Pret­ty great! I fell back­ward into con­sult­ing in late 2023, work­ing with a for­mer col­league in what was prob­a­bly the most reward­ing chap­ter of my career to date. Per­son­al­ly — and I’ll update my media diet in a sep­a­rate post — we trav­eled more than we have in years, with trips that took us back to the Upper Penin­su­la, to Seat­tle and to Point Reyes Sta­tion, Cal­i­for­nia. Mag­i­cal, really.

As I’ve his­tor­i­cal­ly done — you can check the archives — this is the time of year I remem­ber that I’ve had this blog since 2008. It feels insane. Now that I’m an *entre­pre­neur,* I plan to spend more time here, with mix of posts about things that inter­est me, plus pro­fes­sion­al thought lead­er­ship where it makes sense, both for com­mu­ni­ca­tions and mar­ket­ing, plus indus­try obser­va­tions for things that puz­zle me.

For now, I’ll just update on where you can find me online.

  • Bluesky is where you’ll find me in cul­tur­al crit­ic mode. If I haven’t fol­lowed you there, it’s only because I’m being very selec­tive about what dis­course I’m engag­ing. Over­whelm­ing­ly, it’s music crit­ics I’ve been read­ing for twen­ty years.
  • Threads is where I’m choos­ing to rebuild my tech PR acu­men. It is wild how much has changed in tech media, both in terms of out­lets and play­ers. What I’m find­ing are far more enthusiast/influencer voic­es in the space. This isn’t alto­geth­er sur­pris­ing, but Threads will take some tun­ing. I nev­er *real­ly* left tech, but it’s fair to say I built some dis­tance over the last five years. My tol­er­ance for vapor­ware is at an all-time low.
  • LinkedIn is unadul­ter­at­ed con­tent mar­ket­ing and thought lead­er­ship. What I learned in my first con­sult­ing gig is that, true to form, I enjoy high impact trans­for­ma­tion work the most. Com­mu­ni­ca­tions is in dire need of new think­ing, strate­gies, tac­tics, mea­sure­ment and evan­ge­lism of all the above, and I’m shar­ing that on LinkedIn.
  • Insta­gram is where I fol­low the bands and venues I love, and share music and pho­tog­ra­phy infre­quent­ly via Sto­ries and even more rarely on the feed.
  • The Sto­ry­graph is where I’m track­ing what I read.
  • Let­ter­boxd is where I track what I’m watching.

But what about every­thing else?

Well, I only scroll Tik­Tok and rarely share any­thing there. Do I feel like I need to do more direct-to-cam­era post­ing? Sure. Will Tik­Tok be where that hap­pens? Maybe.

How about YouTube? Same as above. It’s an amaz­ing, if over­whelm­ing, enter­tain­ment and edu­ca­tion plat­form. Right now I’m obsessed with Apple pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and Black­stone grid­dle recipes!

Don’t even get me start­ed with Face­book. It’s hard to imag­ine a plat­form that has­n’t been gut­ted like Twit­ter meet­ing the same end. The more plat­forms inject “relat­ed” con­tent into the already over­crowd­ed time­line, the more apt I am to check out. Who thinks we have a con­tent sup­ply short­age? Nobody.

Final­ly, I think the notion that social media is in a death spi­ral is over­rat­ed. Do I think some plat­forms are doubt­less head­ed for the exit? Cer­tain­ly. There are demo­graph­ic fac­tors and gen­er­al malaise at play across this land­scape. But do I think peo­ple don’t enjoy con­nect­ing with one anoth­er in fun, if not mean­ing­ful ways online? Absolute­ly not. 

In fact, in my pro­fes­sion­al opin­ion, I’m see­ing more orga­ni­za­tions, dri­ven entire­ly by cost and the real­i­ty of a rav­aged media land­scape, lean even hard­er into syn­di­cat­ing con­tent on their social chan­nels. Does it work? No. Could it? Maybe! But nobody is ready yet to walk away entirely.

My Summer Media Diet

I haven’t writ­ten one of these in a while, but now that sum­mer has near­ly wrapped up, it felt like as good a time as any to cov­er the music, TV, movies, games and books that have cap­tured my atten­tion when I’m not ful­ly immersed in Tik­Tok or my job search.

Read­ing

  • We Want Every­thing, by Nan­ni Balestri­ni — The eas­i­est way to mar­ket a book to me is to have even the most ten­u­ous con­nec­tion to Rachel Kush­n­er. She men­tioned this book in her essay col­lec­tion The Hard Crowd and I’m not sur­prised that I found it an engross­ing account of how indus­tri­al­iza­tion affect­ed Italy in the ’60s. As we as a soci­ety come to grips with the impact AI may have on our lives and our liveli­hoods, this was a brac­ing read about work­ers try­ing to main­tain some con­trol over how they work and how that trans­lates to their abil­i­ty to live.
  • Folk Music: A Bob Dylan Biog­ra­phy in Sev­en Songs, by Greil Mar­cus — Some­times I real­ly miss the late glo­ry days of music crit­i­cism as seen in alt week­lies. That kind of writ­ing seems even more gnom­ic now than it did then. The ref­er­ences are often even more obscure now, but in the hands of a mas­ter of the form, all the more won­der­ful. I don’t know if I’ve real­ly got­ten to know Dylan bet­ter as I work through this book, but the kalei­do­scop­ic por­tray­al match­es the sev­er­al Dylans he’s been through­out his long career. Did­n’t hurt that Rachel Kush­n­er had a blurb on the inner jacket.
  • Board­walk of Dreams, by Bryant Simon — This is so good I wrote the author an email. I’ve longed for a great piece of urban polit­i­cal econ­o­my about the arc of Atlantic City, and this is it. Bet­ter still, Simon does a fan­tas­tic job of out­lin­ing how the dynam­ics that shaped Atlantic City are per­ti­nent for any city that’s been trans­formed from an indus­tri­al cen­ter into a tourist play­ground. The com­mon thread of how pub­lic spaces are cre­at­ed and for whom illus­trates not only how the Board­walk scenes can be con­nect­ed to the casi­nos, but by the tran­si­tive prop­er­ty, how vibrant down­towns con­nect to sub­ur­ban malls. If you’ve spent any mean­ing­ful amount of time in Atlantic City as my fam­i­ly has vis­it­ing friends on the sound end of town, this will help you under­stand what real­ly hap­pened there and why. He also just shared a Jason Isbell inter­view con­duct­ed by Cap­i­tal Moves author Jef­fer­son Cowie and I’m just smitten.
  • Red­dit. I’m the last per­son on Earth to get lost here. I final­ly fig­ured out how to make it work for me now that I’m not spend­ing time refresh­ing Twit­ter. I get far more enjoy­ment out of it than I ever did most social media. What if forums were the answer the entire time?

Watch­ing

  • Bar­bie — Felt like we had to see it in the the­ater. Helen wore a pink dress and I wore the “sun­ny side up” Pave­ment t‑shirt. I loved so much about it, but felt like for all the talk about dis­man­tling the patri­archy, we spent a dis­pro­por­tion­ate amount of time reha­bil­i­tat­ing the men. It was a fun movie, but I think I want­ed more Ghost World than it could offer.
  • The Bear — Is this the only pres­tige TV I like? Maybe! “Fish­es” and “Forks” were stand­out episodes, but the whole show evolved this sea­son into some­thing more than anoth­er fre­net­ic, trou­bling restau­rant dram­e­dy. Also, Oliv­er Platt rules.
  • What We Do in the Shad­ows — I did­n’t love S4, with baby Col­in Robin­son danc­ing around, but the show seri­ous­ly bounced back in S5 and com­plete­ly pulled me back in just when I thought I might let go. “The Cam­paign” is to Col­in Robin­son what “Forks” was for Richie.
  • Cut­ter’s Way – 20 years ago I was a video store clerk respon­si­ble for main­tain­ing the Amer­i­can actors por­tion of the store. I can’t tell you how the VHS box for Cut­ter’s Way taunt­ed me all these years, along­side Hack­man’s Night Moves and Keach’s Fat City. I dust­ed all of them, but nev­er watched them. Now all three are stream­ing on Cri­te­ri­on Chan­nel togeth­er and after watch­ing Cut­ter’s Way, it’s time I address this over­sight. If I learned any­thing from my time behind the counter at TLA Video, it was that some movies are, well, just a vibe, and this is no excep­tion. The dis­il­lu­sion­ment, much like in We Want Every­thing, just res­onates so pow­er­ful­ly in the cen­tral con­flict and the char­ac­ters are well-developed.

Lis­ten­ing

  • Yo La Ten­go — This Stu­pid World. There’s lit­er­al­ly noth­ing to say about this band that has­n’t already been said. They’re one of a hand­ful of bands that con­sis­tent­ly pro­duces music that I know I’ll enjoy before I’ve lis­tened and they’ve been doing it for decades. This album is no excep­tion, but you already knew that.
  • Mix­cloud. It’s the best music dis­cov­ery app for me, hands down.
  • This Andy Beta mix that was just shared via his Sub­stack this morning.
  • Indiecast. This is the clos­est I get to music crit­i­cism dra­ma near­ly 13 years since last writ­ing about music for mon­ey. It’s as close as I want to get, I think. Steve and Ian are the Siskel and Ebert of 40-some­thing crit­ics and at a time when so much music crit­i­cism has real­ly focused on fan ser­vice, they offer up indif­fer­ence as a refresh­ing coun­ter­point to all that.
  • Jok­er­men & Nev­er End­ing Sto­ries. More Hyden! I’ve loved Jok­er­men, but NES may be my new favorite. The inter­play between the guys is just fan­tas­tic and height­ens my appre­ci­a­tion for Bob and all the sil­ly things he’s done through­out the years.
  • WRTI. What a gem this radio sta­tion is. It was there the entire time. I should’ve been lis­ten­ing since before I got to col­lege, but glad I start­ed now.
  • WFMU. I’ve long aspired to sup­port the sta­tion and I’m glad I final­ly did. Jesse Jarnow’s The Frow Show was a gate­way to so much great music and the broad­er net­work does not dis­ap­point in that regard either.

Play­ing

  • Assas­s­in’s Creed Val­hal­la. I think I’ve spent the last two years play­ing Assas­s­in’s Creed Val­hal­la. It’s equal parts embar­rass­ing and enthralling. I have lit­er­al­ly no friends play­ing this game, but I fell in love with all the Viking back­sto­ry thanks to liv­ing in Scan­di­navia 30 years ago. The sto­ry was real­ly sat­is­fy­ing, so much so that I actu­al­ly com­plet­ed the game and can’t stop wan­der­ing around the coun­try­side. I can’t wait for Mirage to hit.
  • Starfield. I haven’t start­ed play­ing yet, but I’m hop­ing this game cures me of my Assas­s­in’s Creed Val­hal­la habit!

Can We Talk About Forks?

As a 45-year-old sud­den­ly adrift on the job mar­ket, the “Forks” episode of The Bear hit dif­fer­ent. Sure, “Fish­es” was an absolute tour-de-force, cap­i­tal “P” per­for­mance, and “Hon­ey­dew” was a pow­er­ful med­i­ta­tion on growth, but “Forks” spoke to me so direct­ly and hope­ful­ly. Watch­ing Richie trans­form from a lov­able, but deeply flawed dirt­bag liv­ing in an eter­nal present into per­haps the most self-actu­al­ized char­ac­ter on the show was com­plete­ly unex­pect­ed and absolute­ly wel­come. The moment Syd says “Dri­ve,” he’s a man pos­sessed and ful­ly in his ele­ment, con­fi­dent and self-assured, will­ing the team forward.

What I think I espe­cial­ly love about this on a per­son­al lev­el is how Richie and oth­ers are giv­en oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow into them­selves. Carmy sees their poten­tial and puts them in spots to real­ize it. If you’ve ever been stuck or lost in your career, it res­onates deeply, espe­cial­ly when you know what you’re capa­ble of doing, but won­der if you’ll ever get the chance. That’s why Richie’s sto­ry has meant so much to me. The pur­pose he seeks is the anti­dote to “qui­et quit­ting,” or if you’ve tak­en an entry lev­el soci­ol­o­gy class, alien­at­ed labor.

Is there a show I’m more con­cerned about falling apart as col­lat­er­al dam­age of the writ­ers’ strike? No, not like­ly. Maybe it’s just me adopt­ing the Indiecast mind­set, but I lost a taste for most pres­tige TV when Mad Men end­ed. Most of it just feels too self-impor­tant to be gen­uine­ly engag­ing. Like, I know I’m sup­posed to like it, but what even is pres­tige TV in 2023? Is Myth­ic Quest pres­tige TV? I liked that. Are FX shows still pres­tige TV? Is pres­tige just swear­ing and sex on basic cable? Or is it just TV from pre­mi­um services?

The Bear was engi­neered in a lab for young Gen X. “Strange Cur­ren­cies” was my nation­al anthem in 1995. Mon­ster, as I’ve writ­ten else­where, is a cul­tur­al touch­stone with­out equal from my teenage years. The yearn­ing expressed in that song con­nects so per­fect­ly with the mood of sea­son two. But nowhere is it more real­ized than in Richie’s tra­jec­to­ry from “Forks” for­ward, cul­mi­nat­ing in his Jesus-take-the-wheel moment in episode ten and his lac­er­at­ing tough love for Carmy, trapped help­less­ly in the walk-in.

Some­thing I thought about, espe­cial­ly dur­ing “Fish­es,” was Bunuel’s Dis­creet Charm of the Bour­geoisie, where the din­ers await a meal that’s nev­er served. In that sense there’s a real poet­ry to The Bear end­ing before open­ing night and I can be hap­py if it does. Mean­while I will be absolute­ly floor­ing it down back alleys to “Love Sto­ry (Tay­lor’s Ver­sion)” from here on out.

Breaking Up with Twitter

Yes, I’m already on Mastodon. I knew I joined back in 2016 when it was clear Jack had no idea where to take Twit­ter next. Mastodon is fun now that more peo­ple are join­ing. I don’t hate that it’s hard to find peo­ple; that was part of the fun of Twit­ter orig­i­nal­ly. What’s bet­ter is that it’s 2023, not 2008.

My approach to Mastodon is sim­ple: how can I rebuild the expe­ri­ence I had with ear­ly Twit­ter, focused on smart peo­ple I actu­al­ly know who might even be local to me and sec­ond­ly, musi­cians and music crit­ics I enjoy.

This expe­ri­ence has been chas­ten­ing. I com­mit­ted unrea­son­able hours to relent­less­ly refresh­ing Twit­ter. Now that I’ve quit cold turkey, I’m embar­rassed I did­n’t do it soon­er. More embar­rass­ing is the recog­ni­tion of all the paraso­cial rela­tion­ships I built as an out­growth of my career.

Pro­fes­sion­al­ly, it has­n’t made a dif­fer­ence. There are oth­er tools to let me know if some­thing is hap­pen­ing at work. I don’t need to be on the bleed­ing edge of break­ing news — for every­thing — around the clock. What I’ve been able to gath­er from peers is much the same as my expe­ri­ence: Twit­ter has long been a low-per­for­mance social plat­form for most brands, espe­cial­ly those that don’t have a cus­tomer ser­vice function. 

How many brands start­ed chas­ing their “Dunk in the Dark” moment 10 years ago and it nev­er hap­pened for them? My viral tweet is lit­er­al­ly about tak­ing down a Christ­mas tree! Why did this seem so vital for so long?

The Endless Fight Against the Infinite Scroll

https://twitter.com/radiocolin/status/1425073681244504066?s=20

I first wrote about how to com­bat the infi­nite scroll — since dubbed doom­scrolling — back in 2018, bor­row­ing from the updates Jason Kot­tke makes about his media diet. It’s still all about inten­tion­al­i­ty, right? It still is and I try not to stare at the screen in search of some­thing that nev­er mate­ri­al­izes, but phones just demand our atten­tion, don’t they?

Great exam­ple from Char­lie Warzel why it’s impor­tant we put bound­aries around this behav­ior. Can I just say I hate learn­ing over and over that Neil Post­man was more right than I could’ve imag­ined him being when I first read him as a col­lege freshman?

So here’s how I’ve been keep­ing myself busy when I’m not watch­ing Twit­ter unspool.

  • Read­ing
    • Sing Back­wards and Weep. Mark Lane­gan takes you on an odyssey through his career at the mar­gins of the Seat­tle music scene and soci­ety itself. As some­one who real­ly became a music obses­sive as grunge broke, it was a heart­break­ing work. Lane­gan tells a sur­vivor’s tale that gives an over­due human and humane per­spec­tive on the lives and deaths of his close friends Kurt Cobain and Layne Sta­ley. It’s a grip­ping, brac­ing read.
    • Newslet­ters. I need to declare newslet­ter bank­rupt­cy but just can’t. Your newslet­ter is great and I get why peo­ple are turn­ing to email to stop fight­ing algo­rithms, but I’m open to strate­gies for bet­ter email man­age­ment so they’re not just com­plete­ly buried.
      • But as Bri­an Mor­ris­sey writes in the Reboot­ing, email is hard­er than we’re ready to admit. I’ve spent the bet­ter part of the week on a new desk­top (!) PC (!!) just to make my per­son­al email more man­age­able and found that newslet­ter are fre­quent­ly buried in the fun­ni­est places because of how AI sorts your inbox.
  • Watch­ing
    • Ted Las­so. The first sea­son hit me — and every­one else — like a ton of bricks at the out­set of the pan­dem­ic. It just hit the right notes for the moment. Sea­son two? It has­n’t charmed me in quite the same way, and it seems like pub­lic opin­ion has turned sour.
    • Garth Marenghi’s Dark­place. I was first intro­duced to this in grad school or there­abouts by Todd L. Burns. It’s on Ama­zon Prime and if you’re a Matt Berry fan, it’s won­der­ful to look back at this moment in his career.
    • Rick and Morty. I’m not caught up. Appar­ent­ly the sea­son redeems itself, but it’s been try­ing my patience.
    • The Phillies. I’m reluc­tant to admit that this deeply flawed team has won me back with a streak that put them in first place in August. I’m ready to have my heart bro­ken again.
  • Lis­ten­ing
    • Pod­casts
      • Chin Music — Get­ting Kevin Gold­stein back is a gift that just keeps on giving.
    • Mix­cloud — seri­ous­ly this is the future of radio and I hope they can stay indie forever.
    • Albums — too many to list. I’ll share my favorites now that we’ve got just 4 months to go (!) in 2021.
  • Doing
    • Lit­tle League base­ball. Char­lie’s team fin­ished fourth in New Jer­sey. He made a tal­ent­ed team in his only sea­son in the league. If you’ve spent any time around youth sports, you might know how dif­fi­cult this can be. It was a tri­umphant con­clu­sion to an impres­sive Lit­tle League career. He’s excit­ed to start trav­el ball again this fall, along­side hockey.
    • Run­ning. I hired a coach last sum­mer to try to train for a 100K race. It was going great, right up until the time of the move, when I was strick­en by a relent­less case of plan­tar fasci­itis. I’m near­ly com­plete­ly recov­ered but have no races on the sched­ule. I’m back to run­ning about an hour a day at a good pace, but the dif­fer­ence this time is that I’m focused on being lighter. I’m down about twen­ty pounds since the end of June and am look­ing to lose about twen­ty or so more. My hope is that being lighter will trans­late to few­er repet­i­tive stress injuries.
    • Tech upgrades. New phones! We’re all on iPhone 12 now. I’m typ­ing on a Win­dows desk­top PC and it is hilar­i­ous­ly won­der­ful to have an all-in-one in our lives again. I may even write more, but don’t want to com­mit just yet.

Keep choos­ing things that take you offline when you can and remind your­self that infor­ma­tion isn’t the same as action.