I’m Dan Oshinsky, and I run Inbox Collective, an email consultancy. I'm here to share what I've learned about doing great work and building amazing teams.
In 2009, I wrote something that I thought was clever.
Turned out I was just being a dick.
I had gone to a concert with my roommate, Nate, at the Blue Fugue in Columbia, MO. There were a couple of bands playing that night, and one of the openers was from Utah. They were called Mad Max & the Wild Ones. They were a family band. (That’s them in the photo at top.)
And that was that. Until, of course, the band’s manager — also, the band’s mom — went home and searched Google. She found my post.
We traded some comments on my blog, and later emails. She was pissed, and understandably so — some asshole on the Internet was writing snarky comments about her kids!
It’s just that in this case, that asshole was me.
The conversation eventually settled down, and I eventually apologized. I never took the blog post down, because I didn’t want to forget the incident. The Internet is written in ink, and this blog is no exception.
What I’m building towards is this: There’s nothing clever about Internet hate. I know a little more now about what it feels like to be on the other side of that hate. Victories are fleeting, but hate stays with you. Especially Internet hate, where it’s often anonymous, and especially vicious. Somebody you’ve never met has just seen something you’ve done and taken the time out of their day to tell you exactly how much they think you suck.
Look, friends: Spread love, or just keep your damn mouth shut. Opening it to spew hate — especially on a blog, or a YouTube comments section — does you no good.
That night at the Blue Fugue, I could’ve just gone up to the band and told them what I thought. I didn’t, because I would’ve been a giant jackass to tell them to their face what I thought. Instead, I went home and wrote the thoughts on a blog, where I figured they’d never read them.
How is that any different?
I traded emails with the band last week. They’re getting older, and getting offers from legit bands to tour. They’re still out on the road, taking their stabs, making it happen. That’s awesome.
They’re coming through Springfield in a few weeks, actually. If I’m here, I’ll go to the show, and apologize in person, and tell them what I could’ve said the first time:
You guys may be young, but hot damn can you play. Don’t let the haters get you down.
This is not a ground-breaking statement, but I’ll say it anyway: Life is confusing. We have so many questions and so few answers.
And it’s tough to know who our role models should be. There are so many great leaders and thinkers and builders in our world. Who to model a life after? Gandhi? Lincoln? Joan of Arc? Da Vinci?
May I suggest a simple answer:
Do as The Most Interesting Man in the World does.
You know who I’m talking about. The Most Interesting Man in the World is a remarkable guy. I mean, he can speak Russian — in French! Sharks have a week dedicated to him! He’s clearly figured out something about this life that’s worth taking note of.
And I think I’ve figured out his secrets.
Watch enough of his ads, and you’ll notice a few things in common. The Most Interesting Man is almost always:
I was at the Stry.us HQ/apartment on Monday night, sitting on the floor, when I looked up and announced to my editor, Jordan:
This is the furthest along this project has ever been.
Stry.us — or versions of it, at least — had been on my mind since 2007 or so. But it really came into fruition almost two years ago to the day, when I worked up a pitch for something I called “Four Days in America.” It would be a story, I decided, about the state of our union, with reporting on who we we are and where we’re going. It evolved pretty quickly to Stry.us. Two months later, I was leaving my job to start this thing.
But right on that floor in Springfield, on Monday? At no point has Stry.us ever been closer to reality than right then.
Right now, we have:
A website that doesn’t suck.
Some fans.
A team.
Some money.
Excitement.
We’re actually on the verge of… something!
And more good things are happening! Like: I’ll be speaking about Stry.us and our new website at the Association of Alternative Newsmedia convention this summer in Detroit. That’s pretty amazing.
And just being down in Springfield, I can sense the excitement. The library team, in particular, is absolutely wired about our project. They’re going to be a fantastic news partner this summer.
But I always find that just when my ego’s getting a little too big, something happens to bring it back to normal size.
On Monday night in Springfield, I slept on a yoga mat on the floor of the Stry.us apartment. I used a hoodie for a pillow. My bed — and bed-related accessories — won’t arrive for a few more days.
Yes, Stry.us is moving along. Yes, we’re making big strides. Yes, after two years, it’s starting to feel like we’re building towards something really big.
Yes, I can even use the word “we,” because there is a we — the Stry.us team I’ve put together.
But you cannot have a big head when you’re going to bed on a yoga mat, with a hoodie for a pillow.
I posted the job openings for Stry.us on JournalismJobs.com last week, and since then, the apps have been rolling into my inbox. Some are exceptionally good. A few have been exceptionally bad.
Many have left no impression on me whatsoever.
That shouldn’t happen. I’m seeing apps from talented people who just failed to catch my eye. Remember, Future Job Applicants of Tomorrow: The app is your opportunity to sell me on you and your skills. If it’s not eye catching, I’m not hiring.
Some of you guys really need help. So here’s some unsolicited advice for job seekers — specifically, college students and recent grads applying for a reporting job.
There are five questions I’m thinking about when I open your job application email. They are (in this very order):
1. What happens when I Google your name? You should know the answer to this already. I’m hoping to see a portfolio site, some work you’ve done for a news outlet, and maybe a social media profile or three. I will not look past the first page of Google results.
2. Do you have a website? If you’re selling yourself as a modern reporter, you must have an online portfolio. It does not have to be terribly fancy. It can be a blog on WordPress or Tumblr or — and I have seen more than one of these this week — Blogspot. It can be an about.me or a flavors.me page. It must have your contact information, a brief bio, and a list of links to your recent work. It must have been updated in the previous three months.
3. Do you have a LinkedIn page? I want to see where you’ve worked, and I want to see that you’ve actually connected with co-workers. I want to see that it’s been updated in the previous three months.
4. Can you prove any other forms of digital literacy? I want to see that you have an account on any of the following sites: Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, Quora. Just having a single account on any of these sites proves that you actually use the Internet, which is good. (One job applicant this week offered to snail mail me a resume and clips. Another sent me a resume in a file format that I’d never seen before. These are equally bad things.) I want to see that you use the Internet.
5. How organized is your resume? Your email to me? This is important. I want to see that you know how to correctly format an email. When you send me a link, I want to know that you know how to use anchor text. I want to see that you can write succinctly, that you can spell my name correctly, and that you use paragraphs when writing. I need to see that you have an understanding of how words, pictures and links should be laid out visually.
If you can do those things — pass a basic Google test, maintain a website, keep a LinkedIn page, prove digital literacy, and keep your email/resume organized — then the chances of me following up for an interview are infinitely higher. I am likely to pass on you — even if you’re an award-winning reporter who does rocket science in your spare time — if you cannot answer these questions.
Because here is the simple truth: If you fail the five questions above, what you’re really telling me is that you don’t know how to do work on the Internet. And this job I’m hiring for — and pretty much any job in journalism today — is Internet-first.
Before you click “send” on that application to me, go through those five questions. If you can’t answer one, then you better get moving on the answer.
I’m going to close the application process for these Stry.us jobs in two weeks. Get going, guys. Wow me with your apps.
Let me take you back to 2009. Newspapers were slashing staff daily. Jobs weren’t plentiful. A young, wide-eyed Dan Oshinsky was about to graduate from college.
And in the midst of all this, a strange thing happened: A big newspaper chain decided that they really liked me. They liked my attitude and my skills. They told me, straight up: We want to hire you. We don’t know what for yet, but we want you.
Over the next few weeks, I had a number of phone conversations with one of the chain’s executives. The chain had just launched a big blog project at one of their papers, and they seemed really excited about the numbers. They had an idea for me: Start a blog for our papers devoted to young people and business. We’ll give you $100k and a small team to start. Give it a few days and come up with some potential topics for us.
Understand this: I was coming out of journalism school like most J-school students. I had great clips and great ambition. I was fully prepared to start working for a newspaper on a city desk or a political beat.
I thought I was totally unprepared to lead an ambitious, new journalism effort.
I didn’t know anything about business. I didn’t read business blogs. I didn’t understand the market for business news.
The next week, I told the executive: I’m flattered, but sorry. I’m not your guy for this project.
Looking back, I’m stunned at how stupid I was. I can’t believe that I said no, and I can’t believe that I failed to even produce a single tangible idea for such a blog.
How could I have been so unresourceful?
Over the course of about 72 hours, I was given the opportunity to pitch something really impressive. I had everything I needed to start such a project: I was ambitious, I had blogging experience, and I had a good sense for how to create a voice that was readable.
Sure, I didn’t know anything about business news. But here’s the thing: I knew plenty of people who did.
I didn’t ask for their help.
I could’ve turned to my network — my friends, my former bosses — and asked for input on ideas. I could’ve generated a really impressive proposal for that blog.
And I didn’t even think to ask.
What I’ve learned since is the importance of a really good conversation. You need people who can advise you, guide you and — most importantly — ask the kind of questions that will help lead to you the right answers. When you have an opportunity, talk about it with smart people. It’s amazing how a good conversation can really open your eyes to your full potential.
I was reminded of that last week. I was down in Springfield, taking meetings for my upcoming reporting experiment with Stry.us. And in the course of a half dozen conversations, I started to notice some new themes popping up. I suppose I had been thinking about these changes for some time, but it wasn’t until I started really talking it through with others that I realized how big these changes were.
I can’t begin to tell you how thankful I am to have smart people on my side, asking good questions and helping guide this project towards an even more awesome future. Stry.us will be be stronger because of their curiosity and wisdom.
When you’re starting something new, you have to keep your eyes open. You have to listen fully.
And for goodness sake: When you’re lost, don’t be afraid to ask. You don’t have to go it alone.
I’m going to guess that you’ve seen the movie “Cool Runnings,” simply because I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t seen “Cool Runnings.” It’s one of my favorite films, the based-on-a-true-story tale of four Jamaican guys who somehow qualify for the Olympics as bobsledders. It’s funny, and goofy, and inspiring.
Think about the beginning of the movie. We meet our four intrepid bobsledders in unlikely places: Three are trying to qualify for the Summer Olympics in track, and one is a pushcart driver. But when the track thing doesn’t work out, they come together to try to qualify for the Olympics in bobsled, even though they’ve never seen snow, and the Olympics is only a few months away.
And somehow, they qualify for the Games. These four men — through sheer willpower, and also a few classic Disney montages — put in the work needed to learn how to bobsled, and they make the Olympics.
But on the first night of the Games, disaster strikes. They can’t get into the sled fast enough, and the driver, Derice Bannock, has a bad race, and Jamaica finishes the day in last place among all teams.
Then comes the key scene. The whole team is back in their room in the Olympic Village. Derice and his coach, Irv, are talking about what went wrong. Derice suggests that maybe they don’t know enough about the race course. Maybe they don’t know about bobsledding to win.
And that’s when their coach says:
“You know the turns! You know everything there is to know about this sport!”
Think about that for a second, and strip away the fact that this is a Disney movie. Imagine it by itself: An Olympic-caliber coach telling his team, You know everything there is know about the sport, even though you just started learning about it a few months earlier.
That sounds outrageous, and it is. Of course they don’t know everything about the sport! Hell, it’s not even clear that a single member of the team could name someone besides their coach who’d ever competed in an Olympic bobsled event.
But what if I told you that their coach was right? What if I told you that they knew everything they needed to know? — to start, at least.
What do you really need to compete in a four-man bobsled race?
1. A sled
2. A bobsled track
3. Four really big, really strong, really fast men
4. Four helmets
5. Ice
And that’s it. You don’t need fifteen years of bobsled experience to start. You don’t need to know who won the four-man event in the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Games.
All you need is a sled, and a track, and four dudes, and some helmets, and some ice, and you can start racing.
Again, here’s the key concept: That’s what you need to start racing.
Yeah, to win a gold medal, it’s going to take years and years of practice. It’s going to take thousands of hours of work, and then some luck, and Jamaica wasn’t even close to having enough practical experience to win.
But to start, they had everything they need to know.
That’s the idea I want to drill into your heads. If you’re thinking about becoming the world’s best painter, well, yes, it’s going to take some time. You’re going to have spend a lot of time painting, and you’re probably going to spend a lot of time studying other painters.
But to start? All you need is a brush, a canvas, some paint and a little free time.
The world’s best basketball players all started with a ball, sneakers and a court. You think Michael Jordan waited until he’d watched a decade of basketball games before he felt he had enough basketball knowledge to pick up a ball?
Hell no.
The truth is, to start, you don’t need to know all that much. So start before you’re ready, because as Travis Robertson once wrote, you won’t feel ready until long after you’ve already started.
Let me give you another example. I was at a startup event in the fall and heard a guy pitch a lending business. He talked about how he’s been studying the field for five years, reading everything he can about lending, and he’d finally decided that he was ready to start.
The judges asked him what he’d actually done for his business idea in those five years.
Well, he said, I’ve read the books, and I’ve…
No, no, the judges said. What have you done? What actual work do you have to show us?
Nothing, he said.
And where do you think you’d be if, five years ago, you’d started building something instead of just thinking about it?, the judges asked.
The man’s face went blank.
You don’t need to know that much to start. You just need to know that you can do the work, and that you’re passionate about doing the work.
You need to start before you’re really ready to start, because that’s when you’re going to learn the most about what you’re doing. What you’ll read about in books is helpful, and important, but it’s nothing compared to the self-discoveries you’ll make along the way. The most important knowledge is what you’re going to learn during the process of the doing.
If you already know what you want to do, then ask yourself: What are the most basic tools I need to start?
If you have them already, then the only thing truly keeping you from starting is you.
I remember watching my little brother go fishing once. He was in fourth or fifth grade at the time. You have to understand that my little brother is highly allergic to fish. The kid’s face puffs up if he so much as walks past a Benihana.
But he sat on the banks of that river for three, maybe four hours with a fishing reel. Cast one out, reel it back in. Cast one out, reel it back in. He wasn’t going anywhere until he caught something.
Now, I don’t know what he thought he was going to do when he actually caught something, since he couldn’t actually touch the fish. But he’d deal with that when that time came. First he’d reel something big in, then he’d figure out how to get it onto land.
That’s how my family goes about doing the work. We finish what we start — even in situations where the finish line seems quasi-unreachable. We hang around longer than anyone would reasonably expect us to.
Some people call this trait patience, but that’s not quite it. Patience needs to be paired with something else to be worthwhile. By itself, patience is just the ability to tolerate the passing of time.
Patience is for people who don’t have the balls to get what they want.
What you really want is to pair patience with persistence. Persistence is the ability to push and push and push and push. It’s the ability to be stubborn in the best possible sense of the word. It’s the ability to be tenacious in pursuit of dreams.
I had that in mind when I heard this clip from This American Life’s Ira Glass. He says, and I’m paraphrasing here: When you start working on something, you will not be able to do the work like you want to. You have to spend a very long time building things that suck before you build anything good.
Getting good at something requires patience — yes, you have to understand that things probably will go slow, and be able to tolerate that — but you also have to have persistence — that voice that says that just because I’m telling you it might go slow doesn’t mean it has to.
The difference between patience and persistence is the difference between doing and dreaming. It’s the difference between those who get to the finish line and those who quit before the work really begins.
It’s that time of year when everyone’s breaking out their brackets. And everyone’s got their methods. Some pick based on reputation. Some turn to the computers for advice. Some pick based on the cuteness of a school’s mascot.
I’ve got a new system this year, and I think it’s a winner:
I pick by storyline.
That’s right. Forget the percentages or the seedings. Who’s got the best story?
Because that’s what it’s been about the last few years. Look at last year’s bracket. We had four great stories in the Final Four:
This year, I’ve made it my motto: If I can’t envision the movie being made about a team’s performance in the NCAA Tournament, I won’t pick them.
So, yeah, I’m picking Missouri. They were left for dead back in the fall, defied all odds, somehow worked their way into a 2-seed, and in the Final Four, they might have to go through Kentucky — future SEC foe — and Kansas — the once-and-forever rival. I’d watch that movie about the underdog Tigers gunning for their first title.
I’m also picking Harvard. The Ivy League team that can actually play? Denzel’s already lining up for his role as Harvard coach Tommy Amaker in this one. Harvard’s been seeded in the East, and that region’s road to the Final Four runs through Boston. I’d pay to see the Spike Lee joint about Harvard, fair Harvard, suddenly playing for keeps in front of a rowdy hometown crowd[1. Spoiler alert for the film: Jeremy Lin comes back to give the team the inspirational speech before their Elite Eight game.].
Or maybe I should pick Purdue. They’ve got Robbie Hummel, a sixth-year senior. Two ACL surgeries later, he’s finally back in the Big Dance. He’s “Rudy” crossed with “Rocky” — a movie just waiting to happen.
Or what about New Mexico? They’ve got Demetrius Walker, who’s already got one hell of a story out about him in print already. Or South Dakota State, the underdog tale of a tiny school in a tiny state taking on a Monstars-sized Baylor team? Or Gonzaga, the former Cinderella who’s become a giant of college hoops?
I’m looking at my bracket, and all I see are great stories: Stories about underdogs, about dreams, about greatness.
The kind of stories that just might help me win an office pool.
I got asked to speak to a class of business students about two weeks ago. The students were all upperclassmen, all entrepreneurial-minded. I talked about learning how to adjust to life after college, and then we got into the Q&A. One student asked me if I had any heroes in journalism.
“I’m not going to stand up here and be the reporter who tells you I want to be Bob Woodward when I grow up,” I said.
She looked at me blankly.
“I don’t know who that is.”
I went into defense mode.
“Oh… oh, that’s okay. You’re not a journalism student. You’re not legally obligated to know his name.”
Pause.
“Who in here knows who Bob Woodward is?”
There were 16 students in that room. They were all 20 or 21 years old. They were all well read. Several of them have founded their own businesses.
Point is: These are not dumb kids.
Not a single hand went up.
And I stood there, just kind of numb. This wasn’t me pulling out a reference to a semi-famous writer for SI or Esquire or the LA Times. This wasn’t me proclaiming my love for Studs Terkel.
This was Bob Fucking Woodward, the man who brought down the President of the United States. Every one of these students knew what Watergate was.
Not a one knew who’d written the stories that had forced Nixon’s resignation.
A few nights later, I met up with Chase Davis, a fellow Mizzou grad who runs the tech arm of the Center for Investigative Reporting. I mentioned that story to him, and he said the wisest thing: That’s the perfect anecdote to explain how insulated journalists are from the rest of the world.
And he’s so spot on here. I don’t think there’s a reporter out there who doesn’t want to see his/her story create impact. Create change.
But the truth is, so much of what we do doesn’t break through to a large audience. So much goes ignored.
That shouldn’t stop us from reporting. It can’t stop us from telling great stories.
But it’s something we have to be aware of. Historically, news organizations have done a lousy job interacting with readers. Things are getting better — thanks, Internet! — but only a fraction of readers are actually taking to social media/blogs to talk back.
We in the journalism world have to work quadruply hard to break through with our stories. We have to continue to expand our networks beyond the newsroom. We have to be a part of the conversation out in our communities.
Because forty years ago this June, Bob Woodward was part of a team that produced the single most impactful piece of investigative journalism that’s ever been done. Woodward’s stories forced the most powerful person in the known universe to resign his office.
And forty years later, a group of well-educated, well-read students didn’t know his name.
They should. One day, I hope they will.
We have to keep telling important and powerful stories. But we also have to work so much harder to share our stories.
There are so many people out there who still aren’t reading, and who don’t make news an active part of their lives. We need to break through and get to them.
This post is really for anyone who’s about to graduate college and move to a new city. I don’t recommend graduation, but if you have to do it, and you’re moving to a new place, this post might help.
I graduated college on my 22nd birthday. I didn’t yet have a job. Three days later, I put all my stuff in my car and drove home.
Three weeks later, job in hand, I put all my stuff back in my car and moved to Texas.
I’d never been to Texas before, let alone San Antonio. I didn’t know anyone there, and I was very aware before moving was that making friends was going to be hard. Everyone kept telling me how hard it was going to be. It was always the fourth thing they brought up. Oh, San Antonio! It’s so nice there. Hot, but nice. Great Mexican food. And you’re going to have a tough time making friends.
I knew San Antonio wasn’t like DC. There isn’t much of a public transit system in San Antonio. The city is sprawling, and to get pretty much anywhere, you have to drive.
I figured — correctly, I should say — that picking the right place to live was going to impact the type of friends I’d make. So I decided to move into a loft near downtown, in the old Pearl Brewery. There was a 20-foot high beer can on top of my roof that lit up at night with the words, “Enjoy The Finer Life.” The Riverwalk was a block away from my apartment, and some of the city’s finest restaurants were steps away, and there was a yoga studio on the first floor, and nightly live music across the street, and a farmer’s market in my parking lot every Saturday.
It was a really great place to live. I miss that place.
The only thing was, I didn’t really have many friends.
Certainly not at first. Because as I started to meet people, I discovered two things:
1. Young professionals don’t live in San Antonio. They move to Austin, 45 minutes north.
2. If they do live in San Antonio, they live in the suburbs.
So I made friends in the suburbs. But that was strange. I couldn’t really drink with friends because I had to drive home. And forget about a cab. It would’ve cost $75 round trip just to get to a bar and back.
I like friends, but I wasn’t making nearly enough to be able to afford them, it turned out.
Anyway, where this is all going: I just finished reading a fantastic book by Rachel Bertsche. It’s called “MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend.” It’s about a writer like me — she even nailed the Jewish-but-not-all-that-religious journalism grad part — who moves to a new city and tries to make new friends. So she goes on 52 friend-dates during the year. She’s not looking for a man — just a new BFF.
And like me, she discovers: This is way, way harder than you’d think.
I’ve moved three times since San Antonio — to Biloxi, Miss., and then back to D.C., and then out to Columbia, Mo. And in each city, I’ve gotten better at making friends. In Biloxi, that meant actually becoming part of the Jewish community. (I was the 10th person in the minion most Friday nights, so they loved me.) In D.C., that meant kickball leagues and yoga and lots of live music. In Columbia, it’s meant infinite after-work drinks and meetups and lots of socialization.
The lesson that Bersche takes away from her friend search — and I’m happy to confirm that she’s dead on with this — is that making new friends in a new city takes work. Sometimes, it feels like a second job.
So if you’re graduating this May and moving to a new city, I’ll offer you this: Don’t feel alone in your new home. Making new friends is hard, and it doesn’t come easily. But don’t be scared. Go out, be friendly, do things, and be active in the friend search.
This comes back to something I’ve said before: In this life, find things you love and people you love, and make time for both. When you’re out in a new city, searching for friends, start by making time for things you love.
