Measure the Thinking, Not the Noise

Most organizations are very good at measuring activity. 

We count decks, meetings, emails, memos, and updates. We track how busy people are. What we rarely measure is whether any of that work actually moved the organization forward.

Output is easy to see. Thinking is harder. But thinking is where progress starts.

When teams are rewarded for volume, they produce volume. Slides multiply. Reports grow longer. Work becomes a performance (evidence that something is happening) rather than proof that something matters. The signal gets lost in the noise.

A better question for leaders to ask is simple: Did this work clarify something important? Did it sharpen the problem? Did it reveal a tradeoff? Did it open a path to action? Did it connect to a real decision or outcome?

Quality thinking leaves fingerprints. It reduces confusion. It creates alignment. It makes the next step obvious. You don’t need more artifacts to see it, you need better conversations.

When leaders start rewarding clarity, judgment, and insight instead of sheer output, behavior changes. People write less and think more. Meetings get shorter. Decisions get better. The organization shifts from looking productive to actually making progress.

The goal isn’t to do more work. The goal is to do the right work, driven by better thinking.

That’s what’s worth measuring.

Humanize Your Text

I finished writing the third and final draft of a piece and out of curiosity (or mild self-sabotage) ran it through an AI detector. It came back: 61% AI-generated.

Sixty-one.

Then, like a cheerful barista upselling oat milk, it asked: “Would you like to humanize your text?”

I had to sit with that for a second.

Let me get this straight. I write the thing. The machine tells me it sounds like a machine wrote it. Then the same machine offers to make it more human. It’s like a plastic fruit offering to teach an apple how to grow on a tree.

I get that language has patterns. Maybe after years of writing, my fluency itself is starting to look suspicious: too smooth, too balanced, too … competent. As if being clear and structured is now evidence of artificial origin.

Have we’ve reached a point where writing well can count against you?

What bothers me isn’t that the tool got it wrong. Tools get things wrong all the time.

What bothers me is the quiet confidence to essentially say: We know what human sounds like now. And this isn’t it.

Since when?

But real writing isn’t a filter. It’s choices. It’s quirks, blind spots, weird metaphors that somehow land. It’s the slightly crooked sentence you leave alone because straightening it would kill it.

If anything, the more I’ve written over the years, the less interested I’ve become in sounding “perfect.” Perfect is sterile. Perfect is showroom lighting. Perfect is a couch no one is allowed to sit on.

So no, I didn’t click “humanize.”

If I start letting a machine teach me how to sound like myself, I think I’ve missed the point somewhere along the line.

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NOTE: For what it's worth, I posted this on LinkedIn and enjoyed over 1,900 reactions,
over 275 comments, over 150 reposts, and over 75,000 impressions.

White Space Isn’t Empty

It seems like website designers are terrified of empty space.

Web pages are packed like overstuffed suitcases … buttons, banners, pop-ups, chat bubbles, floating discount offers. If there’s a patch of screen not doing something, someone in a meeting starts sweating.

“Should we put something there?”

Apparently, the answer is always, “Yes.”

Which is unfortunate, because white space -- the space between things -- is not wasted room on a page. It guides the eye, directing the reader where to look first (and second and third).

When everything’s crammed together, the eye has nowhere to land. It skims. It bounces. It gives up.

White space fixes that. It quietly tells your eye: start here. Then go here. Then here. No arrows required.

Crowded design, on the other hand, has the energy of a junk drawer. You know the one. Batteries. Rubber bands. Three mystery keys. A takeout menu from 2014. Something sticky that no one wants to investigate. Technically there’s a lot in there. Functionally, you just close the drawer again.

Users do the same thing with crowded pages. They glance. They hesitate. Then they quietly leave. Not out of anger, out of exhaustion.

It’s a simple brain rule at play: crowded information is harder to process. When text and visuals are packed together, your brain has to work overtime just to sort it out.

White space isn’t empty. It’s not wasted space. It’s restraint. The quiet confidence to say, “This part matters enough to stand alone.”

And in a world that keeps trying to add one more thing, one more feature, one more blinking box asking if you'd like 10% off your first order … a little space can be welcome. And help lead prospects comfortably towards the decision you want them to make.

The Copywriting Litmus Test

Years ago, an ex-partner and mentor Tom Dombrosky would get our client brainstorming back on track with one question:

“What’s the big idea?”

Not the hook. Not the headline. Not the targeting. The idea.

His litmus test (which I’ve since heard called the Barstool Test) was: if you can’t explain it in two sentences over a drink (in Tom’s case Stolichnaya), it’s not ready.

Every idea had to pass four filters:

• Is it simple enough to say in one breath?
• Is it emotional enough to make someone feel something?
• Is it relevant to what’s happening right now in the prospect’s world?
• Is it consequential enough to demand action.

If it didn’t clear those, it didn’t leave the room.

Most modern marketing skips this part. We optimize headlines, tweak funnels, and let algorithms decide what survives. It’s efficient and measurable, but a lot of it feels like carefully engineered noise.

Great copy doesn’t start big. It starts small with a specific detail, then tension is built so the reader feels something before you explain anything. Then, once they’re leaning in and emotionally vested, you reveal the big idea.

That’s the difference between information and persuasion.

You can automate distribution. You can A/B test until your eyes bleed. But you can’t automate a clear idea.

If you can’t pitch it casually, cleanly, in two sentences without sounding like you swallowed a marketing podcast, it’s not done.

Start smaller. Tighten it. Make it matter.

Then put it out into the world.

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For a few years, Tom and I were partners in a small advertising agency in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was the senior. I was the junior. I learned a lot, made a lot of money, and had one helluva good time. Here are a few Dombrosky stories you might appreciate:

Chutzpah

Research

It Wasn't Pretty

Kicking Butt in Restaurant Marketing