The weather is turning a bit here in Brighton. I’ve had to cancel the first training session for the youth baseball team I coach (btw - we’re currently looking for sponsors!) because rain is forecast Saturday, and I think that’s the first one I’ve had to cancel all season. I’m hoping to get a last blast of summer in mid-September, though, as I’m doing a keynote session at the Book 2.0 conference in Lisbon. If you’re going to be there, or have any recommendations for Lisbon cafes/restaurants, reply and let me know!

💻 DATA POINT: Measuring the impact of philanthropy is really complex, but sometimes, it’s actually quite simple. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has donated over 300m books to young children, and this research shows the impact of such a simple gift. Children who received books from the project were 9x more likely to read with the parents 4 times or more a week, and 15x more likely to join in shared reading compared to children not in the programme. I hope a lot more billionaires are taking note of the outpouring of love for Dolly this week, and thinking hard about how they could create a similar impact. I won’t hold my breath. (BTW - if you’re after a good book for young kids the third book in my wife’s Colin The Vampire series is out this week!)

Watch How an LLM Learns (animated visualistion)

The AI Search Maturity Index (useful framework)

How Much Data Does McDonald’s Have On You? (6-min read)

The 30,000 Mile Fish Finger (8-min read)

Tisha Johnson on Why People Love The Slate Truck (5-min read)

A Human, For AI (5-min read)

Why Views and Clicks Are No Longer Enough (4-min read)

Dolly Parton’s America (Podcast series)

1963 Computer Made From Rubber Bands (15-min watch)

📣 Erin Johnson on Why The Devil Wears Prada is her Creative Crush (22-min watch) 📣

Watch How an LLM Learns (animated visualistion)
This is a fascinating visualisation of how a very very simple LLM maps text tokens across a 2D space. In reality, most big LLMs map across thousands of dimensions, not just two, but this simple tool (and the explanation of what’s going on) will help you understand how LLMs turns words into tokens.

The AI Search Maturity Index (useful framework)
Our friends at Brxnd.ai shared this really useful framework to see your organisation’s readiness for AI search. We’re probably at level two - contextual - at Storythings, so we’ve got work to do!

How Much Data Does McDonald’s Have On You? (6-min read)
I’m a bit obsessed with how companies use data to understand their audience, so this Wired article where a journalist asked for all 515 pages of data McDonald’s held on him is right up my street. I’m not sure what McDonald’s would have on me - I think the last meal I had from there was a Filet-O-Fish from Harlow Market in around 1986.

The 30,000 Mile Fish Finger (8-min read)
Talking of Filet-O-Fish, I like to recreate them using fish fingers, so was absolutely shocked by this story from Ed Conway about how far your fish fingers travel before you buy them in the supermarket. If you like this kind of thing (and I do) then you’ll like his new book Trade World, which is out in Sept.

Tisha Johnson on Why People Love The Slate Truck (5-min read)
There are very few women working as design leaders in the automotive industry, so it was great to read this interview with Tisha Johnson from Slate, the new low-cost (and very cute) EV truck launching in the US. Her insights into the role of design in something that people use every day are really refreshing, and a great alternative to the macho car culture in the US.

A Human, For AI (5-min read)
Thanks to Steve Bryant for sharing this. It is, I think, a real service, in which a lawyer offers himself as a human for hire to AI agents scouring the web. It’s fun to read, and actually a very good example of how to structure text and information online for AI agents. I really hope this isn’t our future, though.

Why Views and Clicks Are No Longer Enough (4-min read)
Anjali shared this great article from Stephen O’Toole, Marketing Manager at Dunn & Bradstreet, about what he learned going from agency to client side as a B2B marketer. Needless to say, we agree with his take that you need to look at longitudinal brand value metrics, not short term vanity metrics.

Dolly Parton’s America (Podcast series)
I couldn’t not mention Dolly Parton a couple of times in this week’s newsletter, as the outpouring of love for her since she passed this week has been phenomenal. If, like me, you admire her but have never dug deep into her life and legacy, this podcast series from 2019 is a brilliant listen.

1963 Computer Made From Rubber Bands (15-min watch)
This is like a physical version of the tiny LLM simulator I linked to above. It’s a 1963 toy that used plastic and rubber bands to demonstrate how early computers could be programmed to do simple maths problems. It’s very cute, but if I’d had one as a kid, I’d have broken it within days.

📣 Erin Johnson on Why The Devil Wears Prada is her Creative Crush (22-min watch) 📣
Our new B2B CMO Podcast Creative Crush is going from strength to strength - we’ve got a long list of contributors queued up, and we’re planning some special treats for everyone who steps up and shares their Creative Crush with us. So if you’re a CMO or content lead in a B2B company and want to join in, hit reply and we’ll be in touch!

Storythings fave Anne-Laure Le Cunff, a Neuroscientist at Kings College, is a fantastic person to follow on LinkedIn. In this post she talks about the difference between being familiar with a concept and actually understanding it, and gives you a simple test you can try yourself:

READ ANNE-LAURE’S POST HERE>

Drop us a line if you have anything you’d like us to share in a future edition of this newsletter, or of course if you have any comments or suggestions for us!

Have a great weekend!

Matt, Anjali, Hugh, and the team