One advantage of the modern era of total control: The insiders are no longer bothering to hide.

I’ve been pulling away from Substack as it converged to the Deepstate norm. Like Youtube and FB, it now steers you into the orthodox lane. In all of those media you can still find the unorthodox, but you have to fight the algorithmic crosswind to stay there.

I was especially puzzled by the writings of Substack’s co-founder Lulu Meservey. She wrote in some kind of insider code, clearly talking to a club I wasn’t in. Now she’s started writing weekly pieces on how to do publicity. These weekly pieces are losing audience quickly. No way to determine why they’re losing, but maybe readers are getting the same Deepstatey “reveal without revealing” flavor.

In this piece she breaks out of code mode!

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Here’s a sampling of comms tactics I’ve executed – you can see it’s all over the map, and that’s still narrow compared to the full range of possibilities.

Podcast interviews

YouTube series

Guest lecture to military officers

Media profiles (NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, etc. as well as independent journalists like Substackers)

HBO special

Live product demo

Book talks

Viral swag

West Wing tour

Joint appearance with former presidents

Organizing a panel at Aspen or WEF

Customized limited edition Jordans

Starting a conference from scratch

Viral tweets

Spending a day at CIA headquarters with their clandestine experts

Hosting a dinner

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NOW I SEE.