Best of 2019.
I love making lists at the end of a year. I love reading end-of-year lists, too. (Here are my favorite lists about books, movies, music, and games.)
This year was especially fun because it marked the end of a decade. So not only did I get to indulge in "Best of 2019" lists, but there were also tons of "Best of the 2010s." I won't be going that far back with this list -- sheesh, I can hardly remember what life was like ten years ago. Instead, this list is simply the things I enjoyed most from the previous year.
You can also look back at what I loved in 2017 and 2018.
1. Best books
I wrote about each of these five books in my year-end book review, which also lists the 60-something books I read in 2019.
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.
Rilke, quoted in The Friend
2. Best business books
I didn't read a ton of business books this year, something I hope to change with a business book reading challenge in 2020. That being said, these were a few that did cross my path:
3. Best podcasts
My favorite podcasts: Song Exploder, Longform, Breaking Brand, Catch and Kill
Longform -- Weekly conversation with a non-fiction writer or journalist on how they tell stories
Song Exploder -- A podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made
Catch and Kill -- Stories behind Ronan Farrow's investigative journalism into the abuses of Harvey Weinstein and the efforts to keep them under wraps
Breaking Brand --- An original series from Buffer all about how a new DTC brand gets built from the ground up
4. Best podcast episode
This Y Combinator podcast episode features an interview with two of the top growth consultants working in tech. It's a great story of how to organize growth within a company and the lessons learned along the way.
https://blog.ycombinator.com/advice-on-organizing-and-running-growth-teams-from-dan-hockenmaier-and-gustaf-alstromer/
5. Best articles
Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company by Sahil Lavingia
"I thought Gumroad would become a billion-dollar company, with hundreds of employees. It would IPO, and I would work on it until I died. Something like that. Needless to say, that didn’t happen."
The Information Diet by Angus Harvey
"For me, the biggest change happened when I decided to actually start thinking about information as food, and make my diet healthier and more diverse. The effect has been transformative."
The Sweetgreen-ification of Society by Ranjan Roy
"There has always been prevalent class stratification and social signaling. But we're in this weird space where a confluence of user data, targeted marketing, labor trends and even supply chain innovation all work together to create an almost weaponized quinoa bowl. A company with the technical chops, branding resources, and a low interest rate influx of private capital can simply steamroll us with any retail concept. We're no longer constrained to the Banana Republic-Gap-Old Navy trichotomy. Every facet of our daily consumer lives can now be hyper-segmented."
The Modern Trap of Turning Hobbies Into Hustles by Molly Conway
"It’s okay to love a hobby the same way you’d love a pet; for its ability to enrich your life without any expectation that it will help you pay the rent."
6. Best marketing idea
Slow journalism
Ok, so technically this is a journalism idea, but it just seems so appropriate for marketing, too. The idea is similar to a number of minimalist philosophies, perhaps the most famous of which is:
Less, but better
Greg McKeown, Essentialism
It's also related to the article I linked above about the information diet. There is SO much stuff being created these days. As marketers, we can stand out from the pack if our stuff is different, high-quality, and unique, and if we resist the urge to be first, fast, and immediate.
Slow down, read up: Why slow journalism and finishable news is (quickly) growing a following [Nieman Lab]
How to Make Things High Quality [Medium]
7. Best management idea
BICEPS is an acronym for the six core needs that researchers found are most important for people at work. Not everyone feels the need for all six in equal parts. Your teammates' mileage may vary. Here are the six:
Belonging
Improvement / Progress
Choice
Equality / Fairness
Predictability
Significance
8. Best newsletters
Sample email from
Lean Luxe --- Insights into modern DTC brands and e-commerce
Dense Discovery — beautiful collection of design resources and interesting things, sent weekly
Erin Griffith's Tribute to the Heroes of Business --- news and commentary on tech and unicorns from a NYT columnist
Product Hunt Daily --- the best new tech products and product news, sent daily
9. Product of the year
, featuring a highlighted newsletter and most-upvoted issues.
Substack is an email newsletter service that allows writers to set up easy paid subscriptions. It's a model that caught a lot of attention in 2019: Creators getting paid for the stuff they create. Think: Patreon mixed with a magazine subscription.
10. Other great products
Mutiny --- website personalization
Whimsical --- wireframing and mind maps
Fathom Analytics --- simple, private website analytics
SquareDude --- Instagram photo resizer
Stoop --- custom email inbox to collect all your newsletters
11. Best blogs
12. The “ship it” award for product innovation
The online design tool had a big year with a ton of new feature releases and a continuation of becoming the go-to design tool for teams. In particular what I found interesting was the Figma plugins --- a veritable Figma app store for a huge number of extensions and ideas built by the community.
13. Best iOS game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBj_cJL7AKE
14. Best songs
These ones:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1fv7nLgEeWuxadP4Fs7w0p
15. Best movie
Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Hbz2jLxvQ