Hi! I'm Adam, the founder of Mr. Edutainment. I write daily on edutainment, building and spreading ideas, and leading a creator-led business for over 20 years. Artist at heart. Family man in rural England. Subscribe to my newsletter, GrowthCandy, where each issue shares one idea to help build and spread your work, delivered as a short comic.
Agencies love interns and junior talent because they have fresh eyes with fresh ideas, unburdened by memories of what got shot down, what clients won’t go for, and what the market “expects nowadays”. What they overlook is, we should all remain that way anyway. What use is your contribution if you’re happy to be neutered by every negative experience along the way. If you can, try to be like a junior with experience, not like a war veteran afraid of...
Great artists don’t draw all day. They draw a lot. When they’re tired of that, they read about drawing. When they’re tired about that, they think about drawing. When they’re tired of that, they do something else. All in service of their craft, for its own sake, and for those they toil for. It’s okay to put the pencil down so long as the fire keeps burning.
Lean into your craft for long enough… and you’ll find you disagree with every one of your heroes on at least something. This can feel disheartening at first. Lonely, even. Then you realize it’s your voice taking form. Your point of view. An expression perhaps worth sharing, a by-product of your tenure in the space. Lean into it — it makes you our brethren, instead of merely our fans.
The things you’re deliberating over… Reading reviews about online… Umming and arring about… Do they make your family meaningfully happier or your art meaningfully better? If not, why not ditch the evaluation and just focus on making your family meaningfully happier or your art meaningfully better?
If a toddler draws a picture, then AI “improves” it by generating a lifelike version of the drawing… does that make the drawing better? Or does it steal a gift from that child away from you. Or rewrite history as we lose evidence of their growth, perspective, and effort. Or remove the desire to improve in a skill that computers “will just do better anyway”. What if the generated lifelike version of the drawing removed the art, by removing the...
What do you do when there’s zero feedback? The best thing I’ve found is to… just not care about the size of the response. Most of the things I’ve made that did well took a minute for others to understand. They were novel… different… and that means less competition (good) but also slower time to “get it” (bad). So we have to either make peace with periods of zero feedback, or make peace with grueling, never-ending, fierce competition. No right...
Life is too short to merely follow all the rules, do your job, pay your taxes, and pass away. Much too short. Forget the rules. Forget the status games. Forget the comparisons and trinkets and nonsense. Make your thing, love your people, and forget those still caught up in the nonsense. Life is simply way, way, way too short.
What makes a great tool? A premium notebook that’s so pretty you daren’t write in it… or a cheap notebook so quick to scuff that you enjoy using it and throwing it around? Software that’s slick and minimal, but does half the things you need with bugs to fix… or software that’s old and clunky-looking, but does everything you need with bugs long fixed? An e-reader that holds thousands of books but needs replacing as the tech ages… or a...
What do we do when “new and improved” isn’t working? When videogames get ridiculous prices and bloated with in-app purchases, enthusiasts produce gems like “Goldeneye X” to add their favorite improvements to their favorite old games. When car manufacturers pepper their new offerings with subscription extras and annoying beeping features, enthusiasts turn to renovating their old rides and sharing an appreciation for vintage. When big tech offerings become ad-laden, ai-stuffed and pricier without any improvements actual customers want, enthusiasts turn...
I was fortunate enough to be laughed at by some of the kids, back in highschool, around 2002. It meant I learned to do my thing (back then it was making comics, videogames, animations, and card games) and putting some of them on my website for free, and others in my backpack to sell on the schoolyard. Some laughed, said they were lame, thought it was silly, and questioned why they’d buy things from me when they could go and...
If you make your price cheap because you think it’ll win more customers, beware. The moment someone else is cheaper, they’re gone. Because they bought you on price. Do you want to be bought for price? Or do you want to be bought for value, novelty, relational equity, contribution, status, or any number of other reasons? Most of them are a race upwards, to provide more value, more novelty, more contribution, etc. Only price is a race downwards, to zero....
One of the gifts AI has given real artists, is the ability to see our art more clearly. Before generative tools existed, we just thought of art as the whole thing - the process, the product, the person, all kind of mixed together. We never questions the component parts, or their relation to one another. Why would we? But now generative tools exist, widely rejected as artists in favor of “making our own art”, we get to question what exactly...
We should write more. Draw more. Make more. Not because it’s for a project. Just “because”. For the hell of it. Because when we’re gone, it’s all that remains. And those who love us might really thank us for leaving more of ourselves behind for them to cherish.
One of the things my mum taught me, was how to enjoy today while fighting for tomorrow. Live today like it’s the last one, don’t sweat the things others sweat. This is all thats guaranteed, so enjoy it and be happy. And Fight today like you’re going to fight and fight and fight for many many years to come. As more problems come, fight those too. You’ll know when it’s time to stop. I don’t know if she knows she’s...
Life’s long until it isn’t. For every craft you pursue, remember to enjoy it for what it is today. For every project you work on, remember to enjoy what it looks like today. For every client you work with, remember to enjoy the work as it is today. For every recruit you hire, remember to enjoy them as they are today. If you can’t do that, maybe they’re not for you. Because life’s long until it isn’t.
Mascots are back on the rise. Duolingo’s participatory, contextual expressions that transcend the app to the icon itself. Pepsi bringing back Coke’s polar bear to anthropomorphise rivalry. Apple’s ‘Little Finder’ to promote the Neo to Gen Z. They’re back. Because they’re full of personality, let people direct relational equity to that personality, form bonds and feel like they’re entering a world, not just buying a product. I’ve been advocating for mascots since forever. This isn’t an “I told you so”,...
“I can develop sites without a developer!” says the designer. “I can design sites without a designer!” says the developer. “I can write site copy without a copywriter!” says both of them. “I can generate the whole thing without any of you!” says the site owner. All of them are both right and wrong. They’re right, in that it’s possible to marginalize every area they lack in taste or mastery, with slop. They’re wrong, in that it’s impossible to know...
If you need the perfect idea, you’ll never start creating. If you need the perfect notebook, you’ll never start sketching. If you need the perfect writing app, you’ll never start writing. If you need the perfect script, you’ll never start acting. If you need the perfect anything, you might be focused on the wrong thing. Maybe “slightly better than today” is actually the better path. Maybe “slightly better than today” compounds over time. Maybe that compounding effect is the closest...
People think the tools keep changing yet the skills you use with them stay the same. But I love when the opposite is true. When the tools grow old, and the skills stay new. In art, you get used to a certain pencil from a certain store… a certain notebook in a certain size, certain paper, certain cover… yet the act of creating art is forever new. There’s always more to learn, more to practice, more to master. In writing,...
I wear a wristwatch I was given for Father’s Day. It was my dream watch when I was in my early twenties. You can pick them up for about £25 on eBay (depending on condition). It’s priceless to me. Not just because it was my dream watch. But specifically because of who got it for me. Other people have different dream watches. Most of them won’t share my dream. They’ll all tell the time “the right way” for them. Yet...
There are two stories being told, when you build something. The first is the story you tell others. Every product, service and project is a story. The way we express it and connect with it is a story. If something isn’t working, consider looking at the story, and see what might want to change there. The second is the story you tell yourself. Every creator tells themselves a story. The way we relate to the work we put into the...
Why do you take photos? Sony’s Xperia 1VIII launched with an “AI Camera Assistant” that suggests entirely new, generated compositions of your pictures. That way, you don’t take photos. You take prompts. Prompts that generate images that may be a bit like what you saw, but not really. A library of images similar to the memories you could have captured, if you where to have taken photos instead. That feeling of “wait, that misses the point of taking photos” is...
We rarely create with a blank canvas. Normally, the canvas has certain expectations before the first brush stroke is made. And those expectations can be wonderful for creativity. I thought of this while perusing a gardening magazine this morning. The rising temperatures in the UK, mixed with pricing challenges and wild weather, is causing huge disruption across gardens across the country. Some are electing not to bother with their gardens anymore, astroturfing the problems away. Others are seeing opportunity for...
Wired headphones are back. Breaking into fashion amidst increasing distrust of tech companies and the cost of living crisis. Let’s keep in mind: Wired EarPods cost $19. Wireless AirPods (the wire killer) is closer to $250, but we don’t have headphone jacks anymore. A DVD costs $5 one-time. Netflix (the DVD collection killer) is closer to $20/month, but we don’t have DVD players anymore. A CD costs $10 one-time. Spotify (the music collection killer) is closer to $13/month, but we...
Meta declined for the first time since ever, reportedly down 20 million daily active users last quarter. It could be because people didn’t want to be legless avatars in a metaverse. It could be because people didn’t want an AI model nobody asked for pushed on them. It could be because people didn’t want to see back-to-back ads instead of organic posts. It could be because people didn’t want creepy smart glasses nobody asked for pushed on them. It could...
How do you know if your marketing is working? If your marketing team increases MQLs, but close rates decline because lead quality is down… is your marketing working? If your post-sale team’s new referral system creates new MQLs, but SDRs take the credit despite flat reception… is your marketing working? When things are so complex that everyone focuses on their own little piece of the puzzle just to make sense of what they do… is your marketing working? It’s tough...
Old, musty car. No air conditioning. No music. The driver is socially-awkward, but knows the specific route you want to take like the back of his hand, and has taken that sole route every day for almost a decade. Compare that to a brand new, year-model car. Freshly gassed AC. Chilled waterbottles in seatback nets. Your favorite jazz band on the radio. Friendly driver, who makes his way around with his smartphone’s maps app, joining the same congested route as...
Is a $200,000 Birkin bag expensive? After all, it only costs $800-1,400 to produce. It’s a $1k bag with a $199k story attached to it. What’s the story? For its target market, it’s the feeling of being a better, more important, higher status individual than everybody else around them. A Rolls-Royce Phantom sells the same story for $500,000. A whopping $301k more expensive story than the Birkin, yet designed to achieve the same feeling. For the target market, the Birkin...
The desk is brown. The coffee is going cold. The notebook is open. The magazine is creased. The monitor is dusty. If we held onto every piece of information, our minds would explode. Our brains are excellent at “thoughtfully forgetting” information, holding on to only that which is most obviously pertinent to our wellbeing. Good stories are the exception. We remember our spouse’s birthday because it has a story associated with it. It could be, “I love buying them a...
We humans don’t think in facts. We feel in stories. People edit their photographs because the story they tell themselves about their lives matters more than an accurate representation of what happened. People universally hate movies where “the dog dies” because the feeling spoils the rest of the movie. They can’t get into the movie anymore, therefore it was bad. People gladly pay $9.99 + free shipping, but almost never pay $5 + $5 shipping. People can’t remember a series...
I create a newsletter called GrowthCandy. Each issue shares one idea to help build and spread your work, delivered as a short comic. Fast to read. Easy to apply. Hard to forget!