The OutWord Manifesto In Our Year of 2024

Not “resolutions,” manifestos. Process, not product. Join me?

David Pennington
OutWord
Published in
2 min readDec 19, 2023

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Embrace the chaos. There will be a lot of it. — It is an election year. Even if you avoid your phone and the TV and all of the news, you will inevitably have those friends who will want to sell you on a candidate and the importance of voting. The anxiety will bleed onto everything you know. Nothing will feel OK. You can’t control chaos, but you can embrace it. Throw a saddle over it and see where it wants to take you. Just because something is out of YOUR control doesn’t mean it is beyond all control. Stay irrational. Logic only works in reverse. No one can predict the future. Tomorrow is a win and a failure. What are the odds of your idea working? 50%. Data tells you what happened, not what will happen. Introduce variables, test the foundations, change. Abolish Content. Create something better. It’s not content, it is an article. It is a blog. These are your thoughts. This is your blood and ink. This is your spirit. This is what AI will never create. Abolish Algorithms. No allies in the algorithm. This is not a system to be gamed, this is not a game worth winning. Create for the pure joy of creating and expect nothing more. Humans Before Profits. No people, no profits. People are not profit centers. Names over numbers. Your ex is so much more than a data point. Profits gain interest but humans are interested and interesting. In the end, it is humans who will step out for you. Kill The Brand. The idea of the brand. The idea of “you are a brand.” A brand has no feeling, no resolve, no motivation. You cannot trust a brand. Engage in the world of post-branding. Make Real. Real. Reality. Tangible. With feeling. With soul.

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