https://mikelitman.me/blog/ Thoughts on building products without code, taste as strategy, what advertising teaches you about making things, and why curation is a creative act. By Mike Litman. en-gb Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://mikelitman.me/og-image.png https://mikelitman.me/blog/ https://mikelitman.me/blog/ai-collapsed-the-creative-conveyor-belt.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/ai-collapsed-the-creative-conveyor-belt.html In 2013 it took six months to take a payment online. Now ideas ship in an afternoon. Fifteen years as a creative strategist handing ideas to creative teams, and what changes when you can import your taste and have AI build it. Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/ai-agents-in-production-opening-night.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/ai-agents-in-production-opening-night.html Opening night of the World Cup was the first time Beat the Gaffer met reality: 141 predictions settled in one run, a scoring guard defused hours before its first real use, and the case for instructions as infrastructure when AI agents build your product. Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/mra-score.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/mra-score.html I built the MRA Score to rank how absurd each Modern Retro reimagining was. It turned into something more interesting: a tool for measuring novelty itself. Tue, 26 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/how-to-write-x-articles-people-save.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/how-to-write-x-articles-people-save.html Most creators track reach. The bookmark-to-like ratio measures something the algorithm cannot: whether anyone valued your writing enough to return. 103 articles, 42 authors, five patterns. Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/github-actions-weekly-build-log.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/github-actions-weekly-build-log.html How I stopped losing track of what I build every week. A GitHub Actions workflow, a launchd daemon, the Claude API, and 15 weeks of commit history that previously lived only in my head. Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/fantasy-football-live-draft-tracker-gw38.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/fantasy-football-live-draft-tracker-gw38.html A live fantasy football pick tracker for GW38: how I shipped it in a single session, broke it on air at half-time, and learned not to touch working code during a live match. Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/everywear-50.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/everywear-50.html Fifty consecutive days of fashion intelligence. What the system does, what the constraint forces, and what the data says about where fashion coverage is actually going. Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/bottleneck-moved.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/bottleneck-moved.html An editorial reading of Code with Claude 2026, London. The model is no longer the constraint. Five new bottlenecks (review, decisions, identity, standardisation, scaffolding) replace coding, and the one that matters most is decisions. Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/modern-retro-brand-films.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/modern-retro-brand-films.html The production story behind 100 custom Luma AI films for Modern Retro. 199 tracked generations, four rounds of fixes, $196.10 total. Under $2 per film. Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/what-33000-links-reveal.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/what-33000-links-reveal.html I extracted every URL from a decade of personal Slack archives. 33,643 links. 474 channels. Here is what the data shows. Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-machine-newsletter.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-machine-newsletter.html When Twitter killed Revue, I lost a newsletter I loved. Rebuilding it taught me the real bottleneck in AI work is knowing what you want clearly enough to ask. Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/audio-is-the-layer.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/audio-is-the-layer.html Audio is not a feature. It is the foundational layer of the next decade. Ten beliefs about where the market goes, from someone who has built four voice agents inside it. Sat, 09 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/oos-framework.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/oos-framework.html Ten beliefs about building in uncertain times. A framework, a diagnostic, a deck and a phone number. For founders, artists, educators and anyone who believes the future isn't fixed. Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/profile-1-creative-builder.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/profile-1-creative-builder.html Fiona Fung, Anthropic's engineering leader for Claude Code, named two hiring profiles. Profile 1 is creative builders with product sense. Most companies miss it entirely. This is what it looks like when it ships. Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/progress-is-iterative.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/progress-is-iterative.html Big change doesn't arrive fully formed. The future is built one experiment, one failure and one version at a time. Version 1 is not a compromise. It's the method. Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/optimism-realism-imagination.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/optimism-realism-imagination.html The most useful form of optimism isn't wishful thinking. It's clear eyes, bold imagination, and the decision to act anyway. The formula is learnable. Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-future-is-still-to-be-written.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-future-is-still-to-be-written.html No one knows how this ends. That's the whole point. The uncertainty isn't a reason to wait. It's the reason to start. The future is open and your chapter begins now. Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/optimism-is-tribal.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/optimism-is-tribal.html Optimistic people don't operate in isolation. They cluster, compound and build movements. Britain's next generation of builders is already finding each other. Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/oos-one-year-on.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/oos-one-year-on.html I wrote that Britain's problem isn't capability, it's belief. Twelve months of building later, here's what held up, what surprised me, and what I'd add. Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/optimism-is-a-skill.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/optimism-is-a-skill.html Optimism isn't a personality type or a default setting. It's a practice with a method. The 3-part approach behind belief 01 of The Optimist's Operating System. Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/future-literacy.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/future-literacy.html If you can't imagine the future, you can't build it. The leaders who will matter in the next decade are learning a new language now. AI fluency is the entry-level requirement. Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/signal-over-noise.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/signal-over-noise.html The loudest voices aren't always the wisest. The builders who win long-term have learned to distinguish signal from noise. Three habits that separate them. Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/creativity-builds-culture.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/creativity-builds-culture.html Culture isn't what you say about your company. It's the sum of what you make and share. Every idea published, every product launched, every story told is a unit of cultural infrastructure. Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/better-is-possible.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/better-is-possible.html Cynicism is the easy position. Progress isn't guaranteed, but it is achievable. The case for Britain's capacity to change is already written in its history. Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/confidence-compounds.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/confidence-compounds.html Confidence isn't a feeling you wait for. It's a mechanism that builds incrementally, one visible act at a time. On belief 09 of The Optimist's Operating System. Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/high-agency-multiplier.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/high-agency-multiplier.html John Collison would bet on high-agency people for the next decade. AI did not create them. It multiplied them. Klarna, Levels, MIT's 95% pilots, and what the loop actually looks like. Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/output-stacking.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/output-stacking.html Output stacking is the new shape of knowledge work. Three parallel AI sessions, one orchestrator, no multitasking. Why I stopped working sequentially without ever deciding to. Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/enterprise-tech-30-voice-verticals.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/enterprise-tech-30-voice-verticals.html 98 VCs from 85 firms agreed on a list of 60 enterprise tech companies. I had skin in two of three bets it blessed before institutional consensus arrived. What 18 months in voice and verticals taught me about being right early. Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/self-healing-sites.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/self-healing-sites.html Two days. That is how long it took me to notice 394 venues had vanished from one of my sites. The story of building a self-healing data layer across six solo projects, and the one rule worth starting with. Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/edited-by-humans.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/edited-by-humans.html At Google, 75% of new code is AI-written. At Anthropic and OpenAI, 100%. The job flipped from writer to editor, and the people with taste just got promoted. Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/buggy-smart-1000.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/buggy-smart-1000.html 1,140 London venues verified by phone call. The dataset that didn't exist, built for a 2-year-old, and what 10,000+ calls to London cafes and restaurants actually found. Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/moving-fast-breaks-things-slowly.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/moving-fast-breaks-things-slowly.html One missing field triggered a morning audit. The audit found 64 silent issues across a library I thought was error free. Here is what that taught me about building fast with AI. Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/second-brain-second-screen.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/second-brain-second-screen.html The second screen was a broadcast industry dream that dissolved into distraction. The second brain is what replaced it. Here is what changes when AI makes your notes think. Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/my-channels-attention-map.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/my-channels-attention-map.html I built a weekly digest that reads my Slack activity and tells me what mode I was in. It turns out the channels you save to say more about your attention better than your calendar does. Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/walk-right-in.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/walk-right-in.html London has a deep anxiety about turning up to a restaurant without a booking. The Queue Index data says that anxiety is mostly unfounded. Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-great-unplug.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-great-unplug.html Nordic countries ran the biggest classroom technology experiment in history. The data came back negative. They reversed course. Here is what they found, and what it means for every organisation rolling out AI right now. Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/fifty-decks-before-claude-design.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/fifty-decks-before-claude-design.html Fifty presentations. One shared template. A nine-step production pipeline. Here is what building the same thing fifty times teaches you about compound creative infrastructure. Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/megawatts-thesis.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/megawatts-thesis.html A 24-year-old who worked inside OpenAI turned $225M into $5.5B by betting on electricity, not chips. Leopold Aschenbrenner's Megawatt Thesis and why it matters for everyone building with AI. Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/50-days-of-the-pattern.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/50-days-of-the-pattern.html At 30 editions, I knew The Pattern worked technically. At 50, I know it works editorially. Here is what changed, what the redesign taught me, and what 50 consecutive autonomous editions actually proves. Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/everything-is-tokenised.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/everything-is-tokenised.html The entire AI stack has converged on token-based pricing. This is not a coincidence. It is the business model. Here is what it means for everyone using AI tools. Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/kings-cross-ai-capital.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/kings-cross-ai-capital.html OpenAI halted Stargate UK on Tuesday. Four days later it signed its largest office outside the US in King's Cross. Two stories, one truth: the UK is winning the talent war, not the infrastructure war. Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/velocity-gap.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/velocity-gap.html The companies winning with AI aren't the ones with the best tools. Everyone has Copilot. What actually separates them is permission, process redesign, and measuring the right things. Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/ramp-ai-native.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/ramp-ai-native.html Ramp hit 99% AI tool adoption across their company and then noticed most people were stuck. What they built to fix it is a masterclass in AI-native thinking. Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/prototypes-are-the-new-pitches.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/prototypes-are-the-new-pitches.html Why building things beats pitching them -- and what the agency industry's biggest restructuring in decades tells us about what comes next. Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-meaning-recession.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-meaning-recession.html The real AI crisis is not about jobs. It is about why we get out of bed. On the collapse of the effort-to-value link, the new scarcity of trust, and why building is the only answer I have found. Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/abundance-isnt-enough.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/abundance-isnt-enough.html I've shipped 20+ AI products in two years. Some felt hollow. Some didn't. For a long time I couldn't explain the difference. Then I read Sam Lessin's essay on AI and meaning. Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/i-built-a-personal-health-os.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/i-built-a-personal-health-os.html 9 years of data sitting on my phone, never looked at. One afternoon with Claude later: biological age 35, RHR 48, and a dashboard that actually connects everything. Here is what I built and what it taught me. Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/saving-without-reviewing.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/saving-without-reviewing.html The act of saving something feels productive. But saving without reviewing is just hoarding with better UX. The review is the work. The save is the easy part. Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/gym-is-the-new-night-out.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/gym-is-the-new-night-out.html 480 UK nightclubs have closed since 2020. Barry's has a DJ booth. 45% of Gen Z have never had a drink. The night out didn't die. It just got up earlier. Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/slack-dashboard-bible.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/slack-dashboard-bible.html Everything about the Slack dashboard project: how it was built, why, the data, the insights, the market, the vision, and what comes next. Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/459-slack-channels.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/459-slack-channels.html A 90-day analysis of my personal knowledge workspace. 459 channels, 3,312 messages, 1,859 URLs. What came back surprised me. Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/10-years-of-saves.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/10-years-of-saves.html A personal Slack workspace, 459 channels, a decade of data. What ten years of saves actually reveals about how you think, what you care about, and when you change. Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/kerosene-lamp-stage.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/kerosene-lamp-stage.html gmoney's Jevons Paradox frame is the clearest explanation I've read of why the market keeps getting AI wrong. When efficiency gets 6x better, you don't use less. You use it everywhere. Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/narrative-velocity.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/narrative-velocity.html A $1.8B telehealth startup. Two employees. One viral tweet. An FDA warning already on file. What the Medvi story teaches us about narrative velocity. Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/calling-london-restaurants.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/calling-london-restaurants.html What happens when you point three AI voice agents at thousands of London restaurants and let them ring. The infrastructure lessons nobody talks about. Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/what-happens-when-ai-calls-50-restaurants.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/what-happens-when-ai-calls-50-restaurants.html I built an AI that calls London's top 50 restaurants every Saturday and asks one question: how long's the wait? Week 1 broke everything. Here is what I learned. Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/buggy-smart-learnings.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/buggy-smart-learnings.html Nobody has ever collected buggy accessibility data systematically. So I built a voice agent that asks one question: are you pram-friendly? Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/first-order-london-learnings.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/first-order-london-learnings.html Michelin sends inspectors. We send a phone call. I built an AI voice agent that calls restaurants and asks one question: what should a first-timer order? The dish name is the review. Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/how-to-evaluate-an-agency-that-builds.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/how-to-evaluate-an-agency-that-builds.html When agencies pitch with prototypes instead of decks, the evaluation changes. A practical guide for CMOs and procurement directors. Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-prototype-is-the-new-pitch.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-prototype-is-the-new-pitch.html Agencies spend $12.5 billion a year on pitches with a 19% win rate. AI just collapsed the cost of building to near zero. The prototype replaces the performance. Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/30-days-of-the-pattern.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/30-days-of-the-pattern.html After 30 consecutive editions of The Pattern, an AI-native daily culture briefing, here is what I learned about infrastructure, scarcity, authenticity, and building systems that connect dots humans miss. Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/permission-not-required.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/permission-not-required.html Job titles are fences. The brief is a permission slip. The most interesting agencies right now never built the walls. A strategist's case for working beyond your label. Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/when-ai-shops-for-you.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/when-ai-shops-for-you.html Agent Pay shipped. Santander completed Europe's first live AI agent transaction. The storefront is becoming irrelevant. Here's what that means for brands. Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/command-line-creative.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/command-line-creative.html AI turned the blinking cursor into the most powerful creative tool of 2026. The barrier was never skill. It was permission. That permission gap just collapsed. Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/new-knowledge-worker.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/new-knowledge-worker.html The knowledge economy rewarded knowing things. AI just made knowing things free. What comes next is better: judgement, taste, and the ability to ship. Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/thinker-and-maker.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/thinker-and-maker.html The strategist who can build has an unfair advantage. The prototype is the new deck. Strategy is a verb now, not a document. Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/creative-premium.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/creative-premium.html Creative agencies lost 75% of their pricing power in 30 years. Media won because it learned to count. Here's how the creative premium returns. Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/culture-is-infrastructure.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/culture-is-infrastructure.html Nobody owns where the brand sits in culture. Not marketing, not comms, not the strategy team. I built the tools to prove that cultural intelligence can be operationalised, not as a department, but as a system. Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/building-the-shelf.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/building-the-shelf.html 200+ book covers you can drag, flip, shake, scatter, and curate into shareable cards. Plus a quiz, curated lists, and 3D book pages. All vanilla JS, zero frameworks. Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/how-the-pattern-works.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/how-the-pattern-works.html Every morning at 7am, an AI reads 50+ culture feeds, identifies five signals, writes a briefing, records it in a cloned voice, and publishes it as a podcast. I built it in a weekend. One person newsroom, automated content, AI culture briefing. Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/ai-product-brand-voice.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/ai-product-brand-voice.html Most AI products talk about themselves the same way: transformative, powerful, seamless. The brands that win will be the ones that sound like themselves, not like the category. Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/building-without-code.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/building-without-code.html What used to require a team of 5 and 6 months, one person built in weeks. Not because the tools got easier. Because the bottleneck was never the code. Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/builders-are-the-new-influencers.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/builders-are-the-new-influencers.html The most powerful position in 2026 isn't creator or builder. It's both. When you make things and share the process, content becomes distribution and the product becomes the proof. Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/case-study-taste-os.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/case-study-taste-os.html Taste is measurable. A scoring framework for brand taste: 5 dimensions, 100 points, 44 brands scored, individual brand pages, interactive tools, and an embeddable badge. The story of building Taste OS. Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/case-study-first-out.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/case-study-first-out.html Know where to stand on the tube platform for the fastest exit. 383 stations, 19 lines, 90+ features, parent mode, live lift status, and an iOS app. The story of building First Out. Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/case-study-the-pattern.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/case-study-the-pattern.html How one person built a fully automated daily culture intelligence briefing. 140+ RSS feeds, Claude AI synthesis, a cloned voice podcast, and zero human intervention. The story of building The Pattern. Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/building-first-out.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/building-first-out.html Every tube app tells you IF a station is step-free. None tell you WHERE to stand. That's a different problem. Here's how a strategist built the solution. Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/case-study-nihongo.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/case-study-nihongo.html How a non-coder built a 5,000-line Japanese learning app with handwriting recognition, spaced repetition, and interactive dialogues. The story of building Nihongo with Claude Code. Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/after-knowing.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/after-knowing.html What happens when the thing you were paid to know, everyone can know? On the repricing of the knowledge economy, the apprenticeship problem, and what comes next. Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-new-flex.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-new-flex.html The old flex was what you bought. The new flex is what you built, curated, or quit. Status symbols have changed — most people haven't noticed. Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/you-are-what-you-save.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/you-are-what-you-save.html Why what you save says more about you than what you create. Curation as identity in the algorithmic age. Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/media-tsundoku.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/media-tsundoku.html The Japanese concept of buying books you never read, applied to the digital age of tabs, bookmarks, and infinite saves. Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/case-study-trove.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/case-study-trove.html Building a taste engine that turns your saved links into a mirror. How I built a product by ruthlessly cutting features instead of adding them. Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/case-study-modern-retro.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/case-study-modern-retro.html How a stupid question about Supreme in 1974 became a 96-brand AI art gallery with a scoring system, print shop, and Wes Anderson aesthetic. Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/case-study-cultureterminal.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/case-study-cultureterminal.html Building a Techmeme for culture. How I scored 800+ articles weekly across fashion, design, tech, and brands using a 5-factor algorithm and 27 curated sources. Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/stack-doesnt-matter.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/stack-doesnt-matter.html What did you build it with is the wrong question. What does it do and who is it for is the right one. The obsession with tools is a distraction. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-gap.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-gap.html After 15 years in advertising strategy, I walked away to build products with AI. The gap between careers isn't a void. It's where the most interesting work happens. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/advertising-gets-innovation-wrong.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/advertising-gets-innovation-wrong.html Agency innovation labs produce nothing because they separate invention from the people who understand audiences. The best ideas come from the work itself. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/building-on-borrowed-time.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/building-on-borrowed-time.html The most interesting products aren't built in funded sprints with full teams. They're built in the gaps, between meetings, after hours, on the train. Margins are where the best ideas live. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/algorithm-tomorrow.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/algorithm-tomorrow.html Recommendation engines are mirrors, not windows. They show you more of what you already like. But taste doesn't grow in an echo chamber. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-ages.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-ages.html Your taste at 25 is different from your taste at 40. That's not loss — it's refinement. The evolution from more is more to knowing exactly what you want. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/meeting-shouldve-been-product.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/meeting-shouldve-been-product.html All those strategy meetings, all those brainstorms. What if you just built the thing? The transition from 'let's discuss' to 'let me show you.' Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/notification-economy.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/notification-economy.html Every app wants your attention right now. But the most valuable thing in 2026 isn't content, it's silence. Notification fatigue is a design problem, not a user problem. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/trader-joes-tote.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/trader-joes-tote.html A $2.99 canvas bag became a $500 status symbol. How a cheap grocery tote from a regional American supermarket became the ultimate IYKYK fashion flex worldwide. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/whsmith-magazine-aisle.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/whsmith-magazine-aisle.html Standing in a newsagent in Nottingham as a kid, choosing which magazine to spend pocket money on. How a WHSmith aisle shaped everything I build today. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/thirty-second-gut-check.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/thirty-second-gut-check.html You know within seconds whether something is right. That gut reaction isn't random - it's the sum of everything you've ever consumed, filtered through years of paying attention. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/tab-hoarders-defence.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/tab-hoarders-defence.html 47 open tabs isn't chaos - it's a map of your current obsessions. The browser as creative tool. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/who-curates-the-curators.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/who-curates-the-curators.html Curation is having a moment. But when everyone calls themselves a curator, the word loses meaning. The difference between real curation and just making lists. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/last-monoculture.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/last-monoculture.html Football is the only thing left where millions experience the same thing at the same time. No algorithm, no personalised feed. Just 3pm Saturday. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/death-of-browsing.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/death-of-browsing.html You can't just walk into the internet anymore. Everything is a feed, a recommendation, a search result. The serendipity of stumbling onto something you didn't know you wanted. That's gone. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-is-geography.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-is-geography.html Where you grow up shapes what you value aesthetically. Taste isn't universal — it's regional. Understanding that makes you better at everything you design. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/screenshot-folder.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/screenshot-folder.html Camera roll is 40% screenshots of things seen online. What this habit says about how visual thinkers process the world. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/internet-i-miss.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/internet-i-miss.html Peak Twitter, Tumblr, Delicious, StumbleUpon. Not rose-tinted glasses, specific memories of a 2010-2015 internet that was real-time, serendipitous, and human-curated. What was actually lost, and whether it can come back. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/nobody-hires-potential.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/nobody-hires-potential.html Companies hire proof. That's why I build. The portfolio isn't vanity - it's the only argument that works when you're changing lanes. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/feed-before-the-feed.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/feed-before-the-feed.html Before algorithmic feeds, you built your own internet. Blogrolls, RSS readers, curated Twitter follows, Delicious tags. The lost art of assembling your own information diet, and why choosing your sources was itself an act of taste. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/everything-subscription.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/everything-subscription.html Cars, razors, software, fitness, even friendship. When everything becomes a recurring payment, ownership dies. And with it, something about identity. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/fourteen-product-playbook.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/fourteen-product-playbook.html Patterns, mistakes, and what actually works after shipping 14 products in under a year. The non-obvious lessons nobody tells you. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/forty-things-i-know.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/forty-things-i-know.html Not advice. Just 40 observations from 40 years. Short, honest, no framework. Building, taste, life, career, parenting, culture, football. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/month-i-started-making.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/month-i-started-making.html One month ago I wasn't building anything. Now there are 14 live products. An honest account of what changed: the first deploy, the snowball, the failures. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/person-who-sends-you-things.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/person-who-sends-you-things.html Everyone has one friend who sends links constantly. Articles, restaurants, albums, products. I am that person. The compulsion to connect people with things. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/prompt-is-the-brief.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/prompt-is-the-brief.html Directing AI is exactly like writing a creative brief. Clarity, taste, knowing what you want. 15 years of advertising was training for this moment. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/rabbit-hole-as-research.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/rabbit-hole-as-research.html Going deep on random topics at 1am isn't procrastination - it's how you end up building things nobody asked for. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/algorithm-owes-me-nothing.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/algorithm-owes-me-nothing.html The best products aren't built for algorithmic reach. They're built because the maker cared about the craft. Why detaching from distribution metrics leads to better work, stronger portfolios, and real creative freedom. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/version-one-ugly.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/version-one-ugly.html Every product starts embarrassing. The courage to ship something imperfect, learn, and iterate. Perfectionism is the enemy of shipping. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-link-i-sent-to-seven-people.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-link-i-sent-to-seven-people.html When you find something so good you have to share it immediately. What that impulse reveals about how your brain works. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/aesop-effect.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/aesop-effect.html How a soap brand became a global design benchmark. When your store IS the product and your packaging IS the marketing, you've reached something most brands never touch. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/demo-effect.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/demo-effect.html A working product changes the room. One demo beats a hundred decks. When you stop presenting ideas and start showing them, everything shifts. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/content-treadmill.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/content-treadmill.html Everyone is creating, nobody is consuming. When every person is a content creator, who is the audience? The case for being a great consumer instead of a mediocre creator. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/nostalgia-getting-faster.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/nostalgia-getting-faster.html Nostalgia cycles used to be 20 years. Now they're 5. We're experiencing collective deja vu at an accelerating rate. What happens when the present becomes the past almost immediately? Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/save-is-the-signal.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/save-is-the-signal.html You can like, share, comment - but the save is the only honest action online. Nobody performs a save. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/reference-library.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/reference-library.html Every creative person has an internal reference library — decades of consumed culture that inform every decision. Your references ARE your taste. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/death-of-third-place.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/death-of-third-place.html Coffee shops, pubs, bookstores: the places where community happened organically are disappearing. What we lost and where we go next. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/two-tastes-one-product.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/two-tastes-one-product.html What happens when two people with strong taste disagree on creative direction? The line between productive tension and design-by-committee. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/things-i-cant-put-on-linkedin.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/things-i-cant-put-on-linkedin.html Taste, obsession, speed, cultural fluency. The qualities that actually make someone worth hiring rarely show up in a job description. Here's what I think matters most. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-in-words.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-in-words.html Design gets all the credit, but the best brands have a voice you could recognise blindfolded. Copy is a taste decision, not a content decision. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/overnight-obsession.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/overnight-obsession.html Some products get built because they're on a roadmap. The best ones get built because the idea won't leave you alone. The case for following creative obsession. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/generalists-revenge.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/generalists-revenge.html Specialists had their era. AI just handed the future to generalists who see connections across domains. Range is the new unfair advantage. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/ship-then-explain.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/ship-then-explain.html Most people explain forever and never ship. Flip the order. The product is the argument. Nobody needs your pitch if they can use the thing. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/1147pm-ship.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/1147pm-ship.html The specific feeling of deploying something late at night when nobody's watching. The house is quiet. Just you and a terminal. The purest moment in building. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/bedtime-deadline.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/bedtime-deadline.html Most builders think they need more time. They don't. A tight window forces better decisions, faster shipping, and products that actually get finished. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/nobody-asked-for-modern-retro.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/nobody-asked-for-modern-retro.html A stupid question about Supreme in 1974 became my proudest project. 96 brands, AI images, a scoring system, a print shop. No brief. No client. Just taste. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-you-cant-explain.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-you-cant-explain.html You know instantly if a website, a restaurant, a brand is right. But try explaining why. The gap between feeling taste and articulating it. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-debt.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-debt.html Like technical debt but for aesthetics. Every time you accept good enough, it compounds. One day you look at your product and it doesn't feel like yours. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/bookshop-ill-never-open.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/bookshop-ill-never-open.html The shop that lives in my head. A bookshop-cafe with curated shelves, hot chocolate, vinyl, and considered lighting. About taste made physical and the gap between imagination and reality. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/tool-becomes-obsession.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/tool-becomes-obsession.html Claude Code started as a means to an end. Now it's the thing I'm most obsessed with. What happens when the instrument becomes more interesting than the music. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/invisible-skills.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/invisible-skills.html The strategy skills nobody lists on a CV but that transfer perfectly to product building: audience instinct, taste, brief-writing, pattern recognition, and reading a room. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-detail-nobody-notices.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-detail-nobody-notices.html The kerning on a menu. The weight of a door handle. The sound a car door makes when it closes. Nobody consciously notices — but everybody feels it. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/dont-design-for-everyone.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/dont-design-for-everyone.html The most tasteful products are deliberately exclusionary. They make choices that some people won't like. That's the point. Design for everyone and you design for no one. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/tools-have-taste.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/tools-have-taste.html Notion feels different to Google Docs. Are.na feels different to Pinterest. The curation tool shapes what you curate. Tool choice is a design decision. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/building-in-public-overrated.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/building-in-public-overrated.html Most building in public is performance art. Real building is messy, private, and unglamorous. Ship the thing, then talk about it. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/tyranny-of-minimalism.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/tyranny-of-minimalism.html Everyone worships clean and simple. But minimalism has become a default, not a choice. When everything looks the same, the brave call is more. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/what-ikea-taught-taste.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/what-ikea-taught-taste.html IKEA democratised Scandinavian design and accidentally created a generation with specific aesthetic expectations. The most influential design company nobody calls a design company. Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/internet-lost-curation.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/internet-lost-curation.html Algorithms replaced human curation. Now the pendulum is swinging back. Why the curator is the most valuable person on the internet. Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/magazine-era.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/magazine-era.html How print magazines - The Face, i-D, Dazed - built the taste that now drives everything I create. Before algorithms, there were editors. Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/building-for-nobody.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/building-for-nobody.html No market research. No user interviews. No validation. The best products come from scratching your own itch, not chasing someone else's. Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/non-coders-guide-ai.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/non-coders-guide-ai.html You don't need to know code to build products with AI. You need clarity, taste, and the ability to articulate what you want. Sound familiar? Sat, 14 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/design-first-impression.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/design-first-impression.html Typography, spacing, colour, animation - these aren't decoration. They're the product. Why obsessing over design details is the most important work. Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-unfair-advantage.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-unfair-advantage.html When everyone can build with AI, what you choose to build and how you design it becomes the differentiator. Taste is pattern recognition, not preference. Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/london-built-my-taste.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/london-built-my-taste.html The food, the design, the culture, the pubs. How 15+ years in London shaped the way I see, build, and curate everything. Sun, 08 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/portfolio-new-cv.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/portfolio-new-cv.html Why showing what you've built matters more than listing where you've worked. Credentials are fading. Craft is forever. Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/range-is-superpower.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/range-is-superpower.html Pub guide to culture engine to Japanese restaurant finder. Why building across categories isn't scattered - it's strategic. Generalists win. Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/football-taught-me.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/football-taught-me.html Thirty years of supporting Nottingham Forest - through relegations, near-extinction, and a miraculous return. The parallels with building products are everywhere. Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/link-economy-broken.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/link-economy-broken.html Bookmarking is broken. Social sharing is broken. The tools we need to manage links and discover content barely exist. I'm building the replacements. Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/ship-it-saturday.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/ship-it-saturday.html Why weekends are my superpower. How compressed time, high energy, and self-imposed deadlines create better products than unlimited time ever could. Sun, 25 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/strategy-should-build.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/strategy-should-build.html Building products gives strategists real empathy for what they're recommending. Stop advising. Start making. Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/advertising-to-products.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/advertising-to-products.html How 15+ years in ad agencies prepared me for product building. The skills are more transferable than you would think. Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/death-of-algorithm.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/death-of-algorithm.html Social feeds are dying. Chronological is back. Why human-curated feeds beat algorithmic ones. The RSS renaissance. Sun, 18 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/hot-chocolate.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/hot-chocolate.html A manifesto against hustle culture. I don't drink coffee. I drink hot chocolate. And I ship 14 products. Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/wes-anderson-design.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/wes-anderson-design.html Symmetry, colour palette restrictions, attention to background details. How film aesthetics apply to web design. Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/curators-manifesto.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/curators-manifesto.html Curation as a creative act, not just collecting. The internet has an abundance problem, and curators are the new creators. Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/fifteen-year-pivot.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/fifteen-year-pivot.html From agency strategist to product builder at 40. Not a career change - a career evolution. Why experience IS the advantage. Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/bookmarks-autobiography.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/bookmarks-autobiography.html What you save says more about you than what you share. The case for treating bookmarks as a personal archive, not a junk drawer. Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/designing-for-obsessives.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/designing-for-obsessives.html Why niche products beat mass market ones. Forest fans, pub enthusiasts, Japanese food nerds. Build for the obsessed. Mon, 05 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/print-got-it-right.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/print-got-it-right.html Editors, not algorithms. Curation, not aggregation. Finite, not infinite scroll. Everything print did that the web forgot. Sat, 03 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/side-projects-mba.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/side-projects-mba.html Why building 14 products taught more than any business school could. Shipping beats studying. Doing beats debating. Sun, 28 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-stack.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-stack.html Introducing the concept of a taste stack - the layers of influences, experiences, and obsessions that form your creative identity. Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/collectors-instinct.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/collectors-instinct.html The deep human urge to collect - books, links, records, magazines. How collecting is pattern recognition in disguise. Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/ugly-problems.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/ugly-problems.html Building a tube exit guide, a pub directory, a children's activity finder. Not sexy. But useful. Why solving mundane problems beats chasing shiny ones. Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/idea-to-url.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/idea-to-url.html The journey from 'wouldn't it be cool if...' to a live product. What actually happens in between. Why most ideas die and how to keep them alive. Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/japan-attention.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/japan-attention.html How Japanese culture - food, design, craft, service - shaped my obsession with detail. The connection between Oishii London and a deeper philosophy. Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/nobody-reads-decks.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/nobody-reads-decks.html 15 years writing strategy decks that nobody read. Why building the thing is the best strategy document. Show, don't present. Tue, 25 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/sunday-test.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/sunday-test.html If you wouldn't use your own product on a lazy Sunday, it's not good enough. The personal utility bar every side project should clear. Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/digital-interior-design.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/digital-interior-design.html Websites need the same care as physical spaces - lighting, furniture, atmosphere, personality. The interior design of the internet. Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/nottingham-to-london.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/nottingham-to-london.html Growing up in Nottingham, moving to London, and how that journey shaped a worldview. Small city hunger meets big city opportunity. Mon, 10 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/fourteen-products.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/fourteen-products.html Looking at all 14 products and asking: what's the thread? The answer is curation, taste, and making sense of abundance. Wed, 05 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/letter-to-employer.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/letter-to-employer.html An open letter to whoever hires Mike next. What you're getting, what you're not, and why this portfolio IS the interview. Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/slack-crystal-ball.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/slack-crystal-ball.html How analysing Slack channels reveals what people actually care about vs what they say they care about. The hidden signal in workplace chat. Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/build-the-gallery.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/build-the-gallery.html Why distribution and presentation matter as much as creation. Modern Retro isn't just images - it's a gallery experience. The container shapes the content. Wed, 22 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/wikipedia-rabbit-hole.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/wikipedia-rabbit-hole.html A love letter to curiosity. How following random threads leads to unexpected connections. The internet's best feature is still the hyperlink. Wed, 15 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/advertising-dead-alive.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/advertising-dead-alive.html The industry is unrecognisable. But the core skills - storytelling, audience empathy, creative problem-solving - are more valuable than ever. Just in new containers. Fri, 10 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/one-person-team.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/one-person-team.html How to be the PM, designer, developer, marketer, and support team simultaneously. What you gain and what you lose. Sun, 05 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/every-city-font.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/every-city-font.html London is Gill Sans. New York is Helvetica. Tokyo is something elegant you can't quite read. How typography and cities share personality. Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/anti-portfolio.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/anti-portfolio.html For every project in my portfolio, three ideas got edited out. What the cutting room floor reveals about taste, creative editing, and knowing when to stop. Sat, 20 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/rss-quiet-rebellion.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/rss-quiet-rebellion.html While everyone argues about algorithms, RSS quietly does its job. No algorithm, no ads, no engagement tricks. The most punk technology on the internet. Mon, 15 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/kids-taught-ux.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/kids-taught-ux.html Watching toddlers use iPads is a masterclass in intuitive design. If a 3-year-old can't figure it out, neither can your user. Mon, 08 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/last-page-internet.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/last-page-internet.html A thought experiment: if the internet had a final page, what would be on it? A meditation on digital permanence, what survives, and building for the long term. Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-brief-is-dead.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-brief-is-dead.html Why traditional creative briefs fail in a build-first world. When you can go from thought to URL in a day, the brief becomes a relic of a slower era. Fri, 15 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/london-restaurants-as-products.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/london-restaurants-as-products.html What the best London restaurants teach about product design. The parallels between great dining and great UX are everywhere - if you know where to look. Fri, 08 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/ai-taste-paradox.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/ai-taste-paradox.html The paradox at the heart of AI creation. AI tools can generate infinite content, but they have no desire, no taste, no reason to prefer one thing over another. Fri, 25 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/weekend-dad-hack.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/weekend-dad-hack.html The best products come from solving problems you personally experience. How building for your own needs creates better products than any user research deck. Fri, 11 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/brand-as-personality.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/brand-as-personality.html Why brands with personality always win. From fifteen years in advertising, the brands that endure are the ones with genuine, human-feeling personality. Fri, 20 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/attention-is-currency.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/attention-is-currency.html The real economics of what people choose to look at. As an ad person, Mike understands attention deeply - but it's not about capturing it. It's about deserving it. Sun, 15 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/five-minute-rule.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/five-minute-rule.html Simplicity as a product filter. If you can't explain what a product does and why it matters in five minutes, it's too complicated. Thu, 15 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/optimists-operating-system.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/optimists-operating-system.html Belief, creativity and optimism are amongst our most powerful technologies. We can use them to reboot Britain Thu, 01 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/design-systems-life.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/design-systems-life.html How design systems thinking applies beyond software. Consistency, reusable patterns, and intentional constraints - for products, decisions, and life. Thu, 01 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/nostalgia-is-strategy.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/nostalgia-is-strategy.html Why looking backward is the smartest way to build forward. The past contains design patterns, cultural moments, and aesthetic choices the present has forgotten. Tue, 15 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/forty-and-building.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/forty-and-building.html On starting to build things at an age when you're supposed to have it figured out. Starting later means starting with taste, experience, and audience intuition. Tue, 01 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-is-editing.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-is-editing.html Taste isn't about what you include - it's about what you cut. The best menus, albums, portfolios, and products are defined by what is missing. Sat, 15 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/pub-as-product.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/pub-as-product.html The British pub is the original community product. What digital products can learn from a place that has retention without trying. Mon, 10 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/bookmark-graveyard.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/bookmark-graveyard.html Everyone has hundreds of bookmarks they'll never look at again. But what if the pattern of what you save revealed something about who you're? Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/good-enough-trap.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/good-enough-trap.html Perfectionism is procrastination in a nicer outfit. The gap between good enough and perfect is where most projects die. Mon, 10 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/screen-time-well-spent.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/screen-time-well-spent.html The conversation about screen time is always negative. But the same device that wastes your time can be the most powerful creative tool ever made. Sat, 25 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/font-choices-matter.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/font-choices-matter.html Typography is the first thing people feel, before they read a single word. Why your font choice is the most important design decision you'll make. Wed, 15 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/audience-of-one.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/audience-of-one.html Every product I built started by solving my own problem. I'm user zero. The most honest product research is scratching your own itch. Fri, 20 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/colour-is-feeling.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/colour-is-feeling.html Four accent colours across fourteen products. One background tone that isn't quite white. Every colour choice is a micro-decision about how something feels. Sun, 08 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/tools-shape-thinking.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/tools-shape-thinking.html Claude Code changed how I think about building. Before AI tools, ideas stayed as ideas. Now the gap between concept and execution is a conversation. Mon, 18 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/ten-year-taste.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/ten-year-taste.html What would you still recommend from ten years ago? The books, albums, restaurants, websites that have aged well - and the ones that have not. A reflection on what lasts. Tue, 05 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-walk-test.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-walk-test.html How walking unlocks creative thinking. The best product ideas, strategy frameworks, and design solutions come when you close the laptop and go outside. Mon, 28 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/why-i-dont-network.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/why-i-dont-network.html How building things and putting them on the internet creates better professional connections than any business card ever could. Mon, 14 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/retail-is-theatre.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/retail-is-theatre.html Physical retail spaces as curated experiences - from Supreme's drop culture to Aesop's store design. Why great retail is closer to art direction than commerce. Mon, 23 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/playlists-are-portfolios.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/playlists-are-portfolios.html How music playlists are really taste statements. The curation involved in a good playlist mirrors the curation involved in a good portfolio. Mon, 09 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/second-screen-culture.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/second-screen-culture.html The death of single-screen attention. We watch football with Twitter open. We watch films while checking Letterboxd. What this means for attention, culture, and product design. Mon, 26 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/naming-things-hard.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/naming-things-hard.html The obsessive process of naming products and projects. Why the right name shapes everything that follows - and why most names fail before the product even launches. Thu, 22 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/instagram-vs-reality.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/instagram-vs-reality.html How Instagram flattened aesthetics, democratised design taste, and became the most influential design tool ever made. The complicated legacy of the visual internet. Thu, 18 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-morning-scroll.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/the-morning-scroll.html The first thing I do every morning is open Twitter. A love letter to the morning scroll, a defence of being Very Online, and why the timeline still matters. Thu, 04 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/collecting-vs-hoarding.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/collecting-vs-hoarding.html The digital magpie problem. When does thoughtful collection become mindless hoarding? The difference between a library and a landfill, and how tools should help you sort the signal from the noise. Thu, 27 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/small-internet.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/small-internet.html Against scale. Against virality. For building small, personal, considered internet things. A defence of projects that serve ten people brilliantly rather than ten million people adequately. Mon, 10 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/proof-not-talk.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/proof-not-talk.html After 15 years of writing decks and presenting strategies, I needed to prove I could actually make something. The gap between recommending and doing. Why every strategist should ship something real. Tue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/observer-who-builds.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/observer-who-builds.html I've always been the person noticing things - the fonts, the lighting, the vibe. But observing isn't enough anymore. On the transition from watching to making, and what changes when the observer starts creating. Tue, 14 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-only-input.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-only-input.html When AI does the making, all that's left is your judgement. The non-coder's relationship with AI tools - your taste is fully exposed. Every decision reveals what you value. Mon, 08 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/head-of-culture.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/head-of-culture.html Why every brand with physical products needs a Head of Culture. Not a CMO, not a brand manager - someone whose job is to connect brand, product, and culture into one coherent thing. Mon, 18 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/nine-pm-to-midnight.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/nine-pm-to-midnight.html Millions of people are building real products outside work hours. Not side hustles. Not weekend hobbies. Actual shipped products that compete with funded startups. This is the next creative class. Mon, 18 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/magma-closed.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/magma-closed.html Magma bookshop in Farringdon and Covent Garden is gone. Design books, indie magazines, zines - curated not stocked. What happens when the places that shape culture can't survive commercially. Thu, 22 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/seeing-what-matters.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/seeing-what-matters.html The ability to scan 100 things and know which 3 matter. Where this skill comes from, why it's impossible to put on a CV, and why it's the thing that makes everything work. Thu, 08 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/recommender-in-chief.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/recommender-in-chief.html The most Mike thing ever: always recommending things. Sending articles, products, restaurants, albums to anyone who will listen. Why recommending is a love language and what it has to do with everything I build. Thu, 25 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/coherence.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/coherence.html The most important quality in any product: coherence. Everything fits together - name, design, tone, experience. Nothing jars. Why most products fail this test and what it looks like when they pass. Thu, 11 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/moods.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/moods.html Not sure what to read? Browse by mood. Reflective, provocative, practical, or playful. A different way into the archive. mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/editors-picks.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/editors-picks.html The posts I'm most proud of, with notes on why. Not most-read, most meaningful. Curated by hand. mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/changelog.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/changelog.html Every module, feature, and interactive page built into this blog. All vanilla JS. No frameworks. No build step. mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-fingerprint.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/taste-fingerprint.html Answer 5 questions. Get your unique taste fingerprint. Discover which posts match your sensibility. mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/og-gen-kings-cross-ai-capital.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/og-gen-kings-cross-ai-capital.html mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/og-gen-fifty-decks.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/og-gen-fifty-decks.html mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/you.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/you.html Your personal reading stats — posts read, favourite categories, reading streak, and saved articles. mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/hero-qa.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/hero-qa.html mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/contact-sheet.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/contact-sheet.html All 153 posts at a glance. The entire body of work as a single visual field. Click any frame to read. mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/dashboard.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/dashboard.html Stats and analytics for Mike Litman's blog: posts by category, publication frequency, word counts, and writing streaks. mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/og-gen-50-days.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/og-gen-50-days.html mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/bookshelf.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/bookshelf.html Every blog post as a book spine. Browse the collection visually, coloured by category, sized by length. mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/wrapped.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/wrapped.html Your personal reading year in review — Spotify Wrapped style, but for blog posts. mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/seven-days-for-elevenlabs.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/seven-days-for-elevenlabs.html A private build log of the week, Tuesday to Tuesday, that I spent on a written test for the Communications Manager role at ElevenLabs. mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/archive.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/archive.html Complete archive of all blog posts, organised by month. The full publication run. mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/connections.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/connections.html Interactive visualization showing how 150+ blog posts connect through shared tags. Nodes colored by category, edges show shared themes. mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman) https://mikelitman.me/blog/og-gen-narrative-velocity.html https://mikelitman.me/blog/og-gen-narrative-velocity.html mike@mikelitman.me (Mike Litman)