This story I originally wrote for a friend who'd just been laid off from her first startup, and was embarrassed about it. I assured her that surviving a startup shakeup is a badge of honor in Silicon Valley. "So why doesn't anybody talk about it?" she asked. Point taken - and challenge accepted. I published this story on LinkedIn, for all of Silicon Valley to see.
Adobe picked up my story for publication in Create magazine, adding retina-twitching punk graphics by Robert Blatherwick. Best of all: my friend came out of hiding, and found a new job she loves. Because when you speak your truth, there is no shame.
In the first Venice guidebook I wrote, I included a sidebar on how to avoid crowds at St. Mark's cathedral. Those are the only words I wish I hadn't published. Almost a thousand years ago, St Mark's was purpose-built to awe crowds with the glory of Venice. Only with a crowd do you realize: those medieval stonemasons totally nailed it.
To make amends, I wrote "The Joy of the Crowd." The story was adopted as the manifesto for Fest300, a festival travel startup. Within a month of launch, Fest300 generated high-profile coverage; its first year, the site won a Lowell Thomas Award for travel journalism.
Then came Covid-19, and for the first time in centuries, the doors of St. Marks closed to visitors. Overnight, all the most trafficked online features I wrote about travel in Italy suddenly became irrelevant - except for this one. The joy of the crowd stays with us, even after the crowds are gone - and its magnetism is undeniable. We’ll be together again.
Trendspotting isn’t that hard: follow history, and wait. History can take awhile to repeat. But urban farming was one trend I clocked right on time, when editors wanted front-line coverage from the wilds of San Francisco. But I recognized this was no cutting-edge trend: just across the bay in Sonoma, urban farming was already 140 years old.
So instead of trend spotting, I did some trend archaeology. Turns out urban farming in downtown Sonoma has survived revolutions, wild hogs, and real estate developers - forces that urban gardeners still contend with today. When the New York Times ran my feature, a Sonoma old-timer said: “Finally, they get one California story right.” High praise, 140 years in the making.