San Antonio · Texas·Vol. XXXI·Subscribe Free
Strategy · Web · Music · Live Events · Studio · Law
Notes on culture, infrastructure, and the work underneath the work. Updated whenever I have something worth saying. Filed in San Antonio.
Systems and Story
Essays, plus the occasional studio note and dispatch. Occasional and never noisy. Sent when there is something worth saying, and not before.
Subscribe to Systems and StoryIn a world saturated with distraction, attention is both commodity and currency. Rather than accepting noise as fate, this essay argues that cultural institutions should treat attention as infrastructure. By designing systems that cultivate focus and resist algorithmic exploitation, we recover the deep engagement that culture, commerce, and community all quietly depend on.
Continue reading →Also in This Issue
The humble newsletter has become an integrated marketing communications network for thought leaders. A systemic IMC approach can synchronize channels while preserving depth and dialogue, instead of trading one for the other.
Read the essay →WordPress, reframed as a form of civic architecture. Open-source platforms function like digital public squares, and municipalities and cultural organizations that use them inherit real ethical obligations around accessibility and access.
Read the essay →Museums, restaurants, and home cooks all use data to refine experiences. Constant feedback can also lead to homogeneity. The piece calls for designing for delight as well as data.
Read →Friction, timed interactions, and mindful transitions can help users reclaim meaning in a fast-paced digital world. A case for slowness as a design principle, not a deficiency.
Read →A growing collection of essays on culture, communication, and the systems that make a public life possible. New ones arrive when there is something worth saying. Most of it is short. Some of it surprised me.
Browse the archive →If a system is hard to maintain, the story it carries will fade. Build the system that holds. From The Infrastructure of Attention
Argument Index
I write about the systems that decide whether a good idea gets cared for, shared, taught, sold, remembered, or left to gather dust. The subject changes. The question does not.
Attention is not a mood. It is a built condition, and I am interested in the rooms, rituals, and platforms that make serious attention possible.
Read the essay → IMC5 min readA good newsletter is not a little announcement machine. It is a publishing system with taste, cadence, memory, and an actual point of view.
Read the essay → Civic6 min readThe useful internet is not glamorous. It is maintained, readable, findable, accessible, and sturdy enough for people who did not get a launch party.
Read the essay → Culture5 min readEvery cultural venue has a feedback loop. The craft is knowing which signals improve the experience and which ones flatten it.
Read the essay → Design4 min readSpeed is not the same thing as service. Sometimes the most respectful interface gives the mind a second to arrive.
Read the essay → ArchiveCollectionCulture, communication, infrastructure, and the small operational choices that make a public body of work easier to trust.
Browse the archive →I send essays and studio notes with the same standard I use in a classroom: useful, specific, and respectful of attention.
From the Archive
Read next, listen next
The music
The record, out loud. A different room, same maker.
Open the music →
The maker
Where the writing comes from. The working life across several rooms.
Read the long version →
The dispatches
Every new essay, plus the occasional studio note and dispatch, sent when there is something worth saying.
Subscribe by email →
Buddy
Julie Good’s AI guide