We explore many interesting questions on Wednesday as the day finishes.  What do you do?  If the answer is related to consulting, we have more questions.  We expand on the beautiful life of Mad Magazine illustrator and creator of the Fold-In, Al Jaffee, and bring light into the dark news tunnel we can all fall into.

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When people ask you what you do, what do you say?  The answer is easy if you have an easy-to-explain job and have had that job for a long time.  For some of us, it could be more straightforward, or if you've tried to explain what you do for years and left people with more questions than answers, you start making stuff up.  For the last 20 years, when people ask what I do, I tell them I'm a consultant.  This is not a lie, but the term is a broad brush of all kinds of stuff.

Great insight from the video above, consultants go to many meetings, and when not going to a meeting, you are preparing to schedule the next appointment.  The best way to describe what a good consultant can do for large and small companies is to develop projects with a start and end date.  Based on the timelines, a consultant can be someone other than a part of the company for these special projects.  A good consultant can help you grow, and if you have ever tried to hire a great consultant to become part of your team, you know why.

If you ever find yourself in that inevitable situation and don't want to tell people what you do for a living, do what a friend of ours did.  When asked, he told people he sold life insurance; he said no one has to ask follow-up questions when you tell them you sell life insurance 😎

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A person who brought smiles to millions of people over the years has passed away at 102.  Jaffee started illustrating the Mad Magazine Fold-In in 1964 and kept creating those innovative designs until he was 99 years old.  The NYT has a good story about his time at Mad Magazine, most of which we learned for the first time.  Mad Magazine, for some of us, came of age before 200 cable tv channels, and the magazine's latest issue was a highlight of conversation every week. 

In several interviews, Jaffee made comparisons to his fold-ins being in part a satirical answer to Playboys fold-outs or centerfolds.  Jaffee's illustrations, like a lot of Mad Magazine, were more than visually appealing; they made you think, increasing the retention of the satirical point they were trying to make.  Clever comedy is the best comedy. 

For the art and the creativity, the next Al Jaffee is out there now, the next artist, writer, and intelligent thinker that will take an idea and pitch it or publish it to the masses.  Anyone that can make us think and laugh consistently over 50 years is a godsend.

Interesting category position, negative news inside Stranger Things, typically reserved for surprising or a bit out of the ordinary stories.  We should consider the abundance of negative information a strange thing; second the out of, the ordinary comes from data we can now track.  The discussion starts with Sahil Bloom on Twitter.

The thread raises many questions, and a few other lines about negativity contribute to more significant consumption.  This is the argument social media has proven and one we've written about over the years.  Too often, people who can't believe the crazies continue to follow threads not for belief but for curiosity.  Flipped around, the crazies aren't following any line that isn't part of their silo.  Negative news 2, everything else 1, and where will the dollars, the advertising, and the algorithms point you?  The downward spiral is steep.

Bloom observes that the more news you, the consumer, the less well-informed you are.  It will come down to news sources, journalists, and platforms; great journalism is going nowhere.  New media are growing, like Substack, which does not rely on advertising, where you can get and verify the information.  It only takes one candle to destroy the darkness.

Cobra Starship.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

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Thank you for spending a few minutes with us. Here’s one for the road!

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

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