Just Thoughts #8: Reflections of daily thoughts
I post daily on the associated LinkedIn Group to this newsletter. In this article, I reflect a bit more on the thoughts shared this week.
The content in this article is “handwritten” - and only co-piloted with Grammarly’s spell-checking. Downgraded to only free version help as I’m out of funds.
The content is free to read; if you want to support my writing work, you may buy my poetry collection on Gumroad here.
The highlight of the week: One day of sun followed by a day of snow. Finland is one of the few countries in the world where you can almost get 4 seasons in one week.
This week as I’m out of inspiration I’m going to try something different and expand on each “Thought of the day” I’ve written the LinkedIn group that exists to accommodate the subscribers of this weekly rambling of just thoughts.
I’ve picked up a few of the thoughts and incorporated them into the weekly blog, but I haven’t otherwise really used them to construct content. For me, it’s more of an exercise of consistency as that is something I struggle with. I also don’t like the feeling of being obliged to post publically to drive engagement myself, even if that is radically against social media best practices.
Nonetheless, I’ve come to like the numbering of things, as someday you can go back and refer to an index of thoughts and the growing number makes it somehow feel more valuable. Opposed to posting three times a day with the help of some automated AI tooling.
I use LinkedIn’s functionality of “Re-write with AI” maybe every other day I post, but it always ends up being super corny. For some reason, it’s also heavily biased in providing actionable advice, as opposed to being “Just a Thought”, which is my chosen style of writing. I give you a thought and you are either inspired or you or not.
This week is a reflection of daily thoughts of the past week. Consumed a few pieces of content worth mentioning and enjoyed the weather.
Headlines this week:
Thought of the day #39: LinkedIn Group certification.
Thought of the day #40: When to start monetizing Just Thoughts.
Thought of the day #41: School shooting.
Thought of the day #42: OpenAI will raise 100B.
Thought of the day #43: Some leadership books I like referring to.
Thought of the day #44: Using AI for social media content.
Thought of the day #45: Emotional regulation.
Snowboarding and the Finnish weather.
Snowboarding and sunny weather Yeah…. The image generator here would need some better prompting or a better generator… It at least has not been trained on Snowboarding images during sunny weather.
Thought of the day #39
Is your LinkedIn group struggling to meet the "active group" threshold?
According to LinkedIn, an "active group" requires 10 comments by unique group members and a certain amount of overall comments.
If you're finding that no one is accepting invites or showing interest in joining, it may be time to re-evaluate your approach.
Have you considered reaching out to potential members directly or creating more engaging content?
Let's work together to turn your group into an "active group"!
^^ Yes Linkedin's” Rewrite with AI” has the answer! 🫶🏻😂☺️
Please post some stuff in this group you think would be ”more engaging content”.
I realized that the one-sided broadcasting of posts from one day to another won’t make the group certified by LinkedIn. I get a few likes here and there, but with 10 people in the group and the way it’s developed, I have a hard time believing we’ll reach that threshold without growing the group.
Also, one might be arguing if it makes sense to uphold this in a different LinkedIn group, as opposed to say using the chat functionality on Substack. However, Substack profiles are not personable and few readers/consumers maintain some sort of depiction of who they are, making Substack chat a suboptimal version of discord.
I’m thinking of doing public postings of the same content on a completely different platform like Farcaster to reach people “far away from my network”.
Where do you think I should do public posting or build a community?
or
Thought of the day #40
With an incredible vote of one over zero so far we’re publishing just thoughts on Mondays.
I now know how I’m spending the rest of my weekends until someone feels they’d like to pay for my content.
Will work on upgrading my stuff.
To vote is up in my previous post. I got a purchase of my poetry book after last week’s post, so take it as a positive sign. Still, I think I’m going to go all the way to #10 until I turn the paywall on again. For possible subscribers to have enough content to decide if they want to pay for what I share.
Help me out and share Just Thoughts with someone you think should start following Just Thoughts. I will take notice and might even gift a year if you get up to 10 friends to sign up before the #11th Just Thoughts is out.
Thought of the day #41
School shooting and they say talk to your kid about it.
Talk about it how? And did you already talk to your kid about it? How does one know what and how?
Assume one should forward any questions to the professionals? Could get a bit more actionable advice.
There was this horrible incident of a school shooting in a school within the greater area of Helsinki this week. Right after I went talking about how safe it is to live in Finland. It hasn’t happened many times in the country’s modern history, it was motivated by bullying which makes it even sadder.
The schools immediately sent out some crisis communication to the entire city’s school district, but the instructions were a bit vague. Hence, the framing of the post. I did receive one from daycare that was absolutely on point and made me feel equipped as a parent. Unfortunately, it’s only in Swedish, but maybe you can use Google Translate.
Would love to see someone writing about parenting in Finland from an international point of view. That is an immigrant trying to navigate family life arriving in the country and trying to settle in. I would subscribe to that.
Thought of the day #42
with OpenAI Stargate project small nuclear power plants suddenly make sense.
Valuation of 100B 🤯
5 GigaWatts of Power 🤯
It feels huge, but then again so was the first computer back in the day.
Look at where we are now.
With a link to
post on the subject from the past week. I have a friend who invested in a small modular nuclear reactor company recently. Hence, this came to mind. Generally, I’m just reflecting on the fact a lot of the tech that was “huge” in terms of the size, today is quite small.I haven’t yet, but this makes me want to dwell in the world of nuclear reactors for a while.
Thought of the day #43
Great Leadership will always remain the same.
A subjective feeling in those who choose to follow.
It is that crystal clear, yet that ambiguous.
That is the dichotomy of leadership, at any given time you need to be and do, both opposites.
These statements are a combination of thoughts from Jacko Willkins and Leif Babin’s: The dichotomy of leadership. and Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall: Nine Lies About Work. I’ll refrain from elaborating, just read the summaries of the books and you’ll get it.
However, if you want more thoughts like the one above my poetry collection has enough for you to get started.
Thought of the day #44
What is the value of one social media post?
Have you ever wondered what creates the value of a social media post? Is it the audience, the content, the reach, or how it resonates? Perhaps it's all of the above. But what determines the value of a post is the impact it makes.
Having AI write the words for you; are you writing anything at all? Can it make an impact if the AI is writing it on your behalf?
Why develop a feature as "rewrite with AI" if it doesn’t?
My general existential pain of why bother writing anything, to begin with. I got 43 followers and I don’t want to be on social media every day posting to grow an audience so why bother?
Additionally, isn’t it completely fake to use AI to generate an audience for you? I easily see a future where someone is like “I saw you post about this” and you have no clue about the subject “you posted about” as in AI has generated the content for you.
In contrast, when you write enough you start forgetting what you’ve written. I remember an interview with rap artist Lil Wayne that was quite funny. He’s notorious in terms of the amount of activity during the prime of his career. Someone plays back some lyrics and his reaction is priceless. Here’s a Reddit thread.
[Insert YouTube video embed here] What’s the reason this functionality is not supported directly in Substack?
Thought of the day #45
Today's thought is a reminder that sometimes the best way to handle emotions is to let them pass.
And the best way to do that is to get a good night's sleep.
Studies have shown that sleep plays a crucial role in regulating our emotions and helps us to have a better grip on them.
So, if you find yourself struggling with difficult emotions, try taking a step back, getting some rest, and then tackling the situation with a clear mind.
This is almost a full LinkedIn “rewrite with AI” post. I got lazy and the suggestion ended up being along the lines I wanted to express myself. There are times, and this has only started to happen in the past two years when I get an inexplicable sense of anger. My awareness of it has increased so my self-defense mechanism has boiled down to just sleeping before acting. Otherwise, I may say or do something I feel I need to correct later on.
What are your coping strategies for strong emotions?
Four seasons in one week
Last week it was so sunny many changed their winter tires to summer ones even though by the end of the week there was a snowstorm. As I worked late on a the day before I decided to make my goal for the next sunny day to just enjoy the sun. Inspired by Patagonia’s founder who encouraged people to go surf when the surf was up.
Spring weather is by default, but without the sun you just might think it’s fall. Then what Finns call “back-winter” or “back-back-back-winter” happened and we got a pretty nice evening on the slopes with my partner, who has skills that are way better than mine. We have season passes to Talma, but courtesy of a friend we got some tickets to Sveitsi. Here is her run.
She practices with Helsingin Lumilautalijat an association that snowboarding practices for adults and is set up (a.k.a. Founder of) by none other than Co-Founder of Aaltoes & Co-Founder of Smartly.io Kristo Ovaska.
Kristo also just happens to be speaking this upcoming Wednesday about Inclusive company building together with Jasmin Assulin CEO & Co-founder of Deidei and Timo Ahopelto (whom I’ve mentioned quite a few times) at Helsinki’s Startup Hub Maria 01.
As we’re on the subject of the upcoming week; I’ll also be attending the DNS (The biggest DEIB event in the Nordics) Roadshow where Jasmin will also be speaking at. DNS is partnering with Deidei to increase awareness of the event in the local Helsinki scene. Hope to see you at either of the events! For those who won’t be traveling, I’ll cover a few thoughts on it in the following post.
Have an amazing week!
Until next week! Remember to subscribe for more thoughts every Monday and get access to an exclusive community of daily “Just Thoughts”!
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