Chris Murphy

Tidying my archive earlier, I found a copy of an article I wrote – on the importance of focus – for net magazine in June, 2018.

This short fragment caught my eye (emphasis added):

My focus […] is simple: “To help others build better businesses by providing digital tools for digital entrepreneurs.”

This short sentence, which took a considerable amount of time to write, is the result of distilling and defining my mission.

Over last five years – sparked, in part, by the pandemic – I’ve faced a series of challenges with my health (in particular, a long-running problem with an iron deficiency that has unfortunately led to a series of other issues).

The longer I’ve been out of the loop, the harder it’s been to start again. Over the last few weeks, however, I’ve been working through Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s Tiny Experiments framework.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Le Cunff’s approach has been, for me, life-changing. It has proved the impetus I needed and – more importantly – it has given me the self-belief to start again.

Back to focus….

I read the mission statement above – “To help others build better businesses by providing digital tools for digital entrepreneurs.” – and I realised that, at heart, this still resonates.

This is the longest post I’ve written in quite some time, but I’m so, so happy to have plucked up the courage to liberate it from Simplenote and post it publicly.

It’s a start.

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Paul Graham on the importance of writing and the thinking that underpins it:

… good writing is an illusion: what people call good writing is actually good thinking, and of course good thinkers are rare.

One of the many successful outcomes from the Masters in Multidisciplinary Design I founded at Belfast School of Art was the emphasis on reading, writing and thinking.

To this day, I’m always delighted when past graduates get in touch, years later, to recommend a book they’ve found useful.

As Graham notes: Good thinkers are rare.

You can bootstrap and level up your thinking by reading more, but reading in depth requires hard work and perseverance.

Few make this effort, so you can improve your prospects by being one of the few that do make the effort. It’s simple, it’s just hard.

In case you missed it, on 26 February, Amazon is removing the ability to download books you’ve purchased from its Kindle store. (Unsurprisingly, this is not something Amazon has widely shared so you might have missed this news.)

After 26 February, books you’ve purchased via Amazon – books that you, entirely justifiably, considered you ‘owned’ – will be locked into Amazon’s Kindle ecosystem.

If, like me, you’ve periodically downloaded your purchases as a backup, or so you can transfer your books to another reader – for example, Apple’s Books reader – you’ll need to download your purchases before the upcoming deadline.

Sadly, this is yet another example of Amazon shifting the goalposts: books you once ‘owned’, you’ll now be effectively ‘licensing’.

Unfortunately, downloading previously purchased books – which are listed in your account’s Content Library – is a cumbersome process. With no batch downloading option, you’ll have to download each book, one-by-one. Lifehacker has a helpful guide.

If, like me, you’ve accumulated a sizeable library of Kindle books, I’d urge you to set aside some time to ensure you download copies of everything you purchased, after all you, paid for them.

If you’re not a subscriber to Do Books’ newsletter, do yourself a favour and sign up now. It’s always inspiring and one of the few newsletters I read in its entirety.

Today’s newsletter arrived titled: ‘Fax Club’.

As someone who has a special place in their heart for old technologies, especially old analogue technologies, my interest was piqued. I had a past fax project and I wondered…

What might this Fax Club be?

Opening with the words:

Sometimes, the ideas we dismiss as foolish are the very ones that make us unforgettable.

The newsletter then introduced Fax Club – a small, but high engagement club open to just 100 people. They say, “Great minds think alike.” I loved the overlap, between Fax Club and Facsimile, a newsletter I published a decade ago.

An infrequent ‘periodical’ it was published to a small, but highly dedicated readership, numbering single figures. Here’s how I pitched it at the time:

Facsimile is a ‘cumbersome periodical’, requiring effort to acquire. Access to a fax machine is essential for reading. By putting barriers in the way of the reader – and purposefully rendering it difficult to acquire - Facsimile encourages engagement by its audience.

Facsimile features idiosyncratic content, loosely focused around the field of communication design, and is published quarterly to a small, but dedicated readership.

The model I adopted for Facsimile intentionally contrasted with the prevailing trend at the time, where large readership numbers were telegraphed as social proof that a publication was ‘worth reading’, for example:

Join 35,864+ subscribers and enter your email below.

I wanted to do something different (I even went so far as to buy fax machines for a small group of readers). My approach – intentionally absurd – emphasised the tight-knit audience and it celebrated close connections with individual audience members:

Join four subscribers – including Mr Bingo – and enter your fax number below.

Facsimile ran for a total of eight issues, for two full years, and its readership never exceeded 10. The whole point, which I’m returning to a decade later, was:

• quality over quantity; and
• remarkability.

Put another way, as Marty Neumeier summarises: “When everyone zigs, zag.”

I’ve always admired David Hieatt’s thinking. I’m a proud owner of Hiut Denim beautifully tailored jeans (which are about to go into Hiut for some much-needed repairs). I also have many of Do’s books (my first, Do Purpose, is currently next in line for a reread).

So, Facsimile and Fax Club were, until today: “Friends that hadn’t met yet.” So: Facsimile, meet Fax Club and Fax Club, meet Facsimile.

In 2020, I stopped posting articles and notes to the web and withdrew, almost entirely, from social media. I didn’t stop writing – I’ve always maintained a daily writing habit – I just didn’t share my writing.

Over the last five years – last year, 2024, in particular – I’ve tried many times to reboot my brain and start publishing again, but I’ve been unable to do so, paralysed by fear.

I love writing, it sharpens the mind. I also believe that sharing your writing, in public, forces you to level up your thinking. Writing is a powerful habit, I just need to rekindle that habit.

In early February, I heard from Anne-Laure Le Cunff – the founder of Ness Labs and the author of Tiny Experiments – that I’d been accepted to join ‘The Curiosity Collective’, an ephemeral community of ~300 participants exploring The Multiplier Effect of Collective Curiosity.

Being a part of that community has enabled me to ‘bootstrap myself back into existence’ and given me the confidence to start writing again.

I’m incredibly grateful to Le Cunff for inviting me to be a part of the Curiosity Collective experience. Being a part of that community, which is incredibly supportive, has helped me to start once again. For that I am eternally grateful.