How much of what you consumed today was suggested to you by an algorithmic “for you” feed?
There’s a game at play here. Six, give you more content than you can handle, informed by all the personal information they’ve collected. They engage you, drain you, and monetize you. They make money by stealing your attention and making your life worse. That’s an asymmetric game. We can’t win.
There’s another game. One where we share with each other. The way the internet once was. Thoughtful, human-to-human recommendations. That’s our co-op game. We can all win that one.
I find the most interesting books through recommendations from interesting people. Conversations with friends. Or, references in books or recommendations from their authors. The Algorithm will only show me things it thinks I’ll like based on its profile of me. Only a person can show me something that’ll change me, that I’ve never seen before, based on who I am. For example, The Uncertainty Mindset fundamentally changed how I think about business. It’s criminally under read, and I never would’ve found it if someone hadn’t told me about it.
Good recommendation game
There’s an art to making good recommendations. If you want people to appreciate what you’re giving them, you need good recommendation game. You make recommendations valuable by making them specific and unique. Recommendations are something of a homework assignment. You owe it to the recipient to put in some effort on your end.
A recommendation is more likely to land if you:
Explain why you’re recommending this thing in this context
Summarize the value and explain why it’s worth their time
Call out a specific feature or pull an excerpt of what you’re recommending
Recommend one onboarding piece instead of an artist’s catalog or YouTube channel,
Share a list of 3-5 items. Telling me you have “60 AI tools I should add to my dev workflow” tells me nothing
Give them a ‘hook’ that explains how your recommendation connects to their interests or work
Give a comment that helps the OP explore their original idea further, or asks an interesting question of them.
A couple of threads worth reading on recommendation game: 1, 2
Be a tour guide
We are smothered by infinite content. People are hungry for guidance on what’s worthy of attention. They want help finding the top 1% among the slop.
You can be a tour guide by sharing your best finds. You can help others navigate. Recommendations are a public service. Doesn’t have to be a comment or convo, can be a post, that helps people without you even realizing it.
The Call to Action
Send me your reading lists! Your playlists! Your books, articles, podcasts, songs, and videos that had a profound impact on you. The ones that changed rewired your brain. Made you feel alive.
Tell me why. Practice writing an impactful recommendation in the comments. 👇
My number 1 recommendation right now would be Fire Force. So much of my content consumption centers around self improvement, career, personal finance, and business development. In an attempt to completely push back on this I paid for a sub to Crunchyroll. I like Fire Force because it is complete nonsense. This is entertainment just for the sake of entertainment. The plot is insane. For some reason in Tokyo there is a rash of unexplained spontaneous human combustion events. The city is ablaze and in a panic. The victims are called infernals. When someone lights up, the Fire Force shows up to save the day by putting out the fire and “putting the infernal to rest.” They even have a nun on staff to offer up a prayer while the infernal is laid to rest. There are 2nd and 3rd generation fire soldiers who have super powers over the “flame” and the stuff they do is completely crazy. The personalities are strong (read “over the top”) and every time a new character is introduced it is like the writers are trying to one-up the one before. Just trying to explain the plot or story to a normal person will make you sound completely crazy.
Watching Fire Force has nothing to do with improvement and I’m learning nothing but I’ve had a blast carving out 24-48 minutes a day to jump in and see what’s going on. Some people can’t get into Anime and I get that but if you can appreciate this genre I can tell you that I’ve had a blast.