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October’s Finds From the Desk Drawer
Links I saved in October.
Joshua Poh
November 12, 2025
Hi friends,
Here are six saved links and reads that made me do a double-take this month! Be sure to save these to marinate on if these catch your eye, too.
In this month’s roundup, mostly themed around AI and the state of marketing to watch.
Two (for me) paradigm-shifting views and reports on the state of marketing (In short, it isn’t so fun in the digital world anymore. And this matters. Marketing shows up in these spaces, so it affects how people respond to your messages)
Why we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard when quoting stats to support our work
A fun one on how you can make the most mundane things interesting, by linking two seemingly unrelated things together + a reminder that social media (and the internet at large) can be fun and creative!
Let’s get into the roundup!
🎯 One sentence summary: Compiled by marketing strategist Florian Schleicher, this report says it plainly: digital spaces aren’t that fun to be in anymore, and why digital marketers should care. Here’s why digital marketers should care, and why there are more and more in-person experiences and offline communities; focusing on in-person connections is growing in popularity. Also see link to the full report here.
💬 One important quote: “People are starting to long for the inefficient, the communal, the slow. They gather again in small groups. They share meals, walk through, create with their hands. They choose depth over speed, intention over automation, presence over performance”.
🗝️ One key takeaway: The wider trend of people experiencing fatigue and overwhelm in digital spaces is a problem if you work in marketing. The spaces where marketers show up feel like noise, not value. Old tools of engagement now trigger fatigue, not connection. Brands are chasing attention on platforms people are trying to escape.
💭 Thoughts: I wonder if it’s confirmation bias speaking, but I’m simultaneously seeing this trend pop up again and again over the last couple of months — major public digital spaces aren’t what they used to be now. Social media is inundated with ads and AI-generated posts, and it’s harder to stay connected. I’ve gotten better insights and connections from smaller, more intimate private communities. I haven’t experimented with regular in-person gatherings yet, but I do feel like this is an area that I want to explore in 2026.
🎯 One sentence summary: The push to make marketing data and metric-driven meant that something vital was lost — the work of marketing includes relating to people and building trust that can easily be broken.
💬 One (ok two) important quotes:
‘Marketing, once a craft of creativity and connection, too often feels mechanical, extractive, empty. Somewhere along the line, we forgot that. We automated. We optimised. We chased numbers instead of nurturing connection. We focused our efforts on attracting the anonymous masses “out there in the internet ether” rather than on the people right in front of us, the people we’re here to serve. We started seeing them as “targets” and data points, and marketing became something done to an audience rather than done with and for them.’
'“And yet, underneath the fatigue, we heard something hopeful. People still care deeply. They want their work to feel good again, to mean something, to build trust, to make a difference. Those who are thriving today are doing it through craft and care: knowing who and what they’re for, by listening, communicating with honesty, and nurturing genuine relationships. Their success comes not from the biggest budgets, but from approaching marketing as a means of building relationships, not just transactions.”
🗝️ One key takeaway: Marketing’s at an inflection point now, and besides all the focus on automation and optimization, we also need to think about
💭 Thoughts: I read this thinkpiece and it set off so many thoughts about the marketing space. Just as in the previous report, I’ve been noticing this trend in my space, both in B2B and more lifestyle-related areas. There’s an increase in exhaustion, burnout, and all the other not so good stuff. But, people still care about their work. I like that Sonja addresses marketers as humans here, and I appreciated this reframe. I think there are rumblings of a sea change in the air, and I’m thinking of how to infuse this into my personal POV.
🎯 One sentence summary: Not everything you see online is factual or research-based, even stats that are quoted often on the internet (plus these stats are also often quoted by AI) — so you need to do some digging to validate your stats.
💬 One (ok, two) important quotes:
‘First, you can’t assume a statistic is legitimate just because it is quoted frequently or even used by experts or institutions. Second, when a “bold” statistic is mentioned in an article or book, you should expect to see a valid citation and be cautious when one is missing. Third, rather than stopping at the first “reputable” source, you may need to keep digging to the original source. Finally, whenever possible, you should verify the statistic actually appears in the cited research and comes as advertised.’
“As data storytellers, we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard and be more disciplined with the numbers we use to evangelize our visual craft. Furthermore, when we choose to highlight statistics in our data stories, we must not fool ourselves. While we might be excited to discover a certain figure that strengthens our narrative, we need to take the necessary steps to verify it is legitimate.”
🗝️ One key takeaway: We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard when quoting stats and sourcing authoritative stats to support our work.
💭 Thoughts: A huge part of my work is finding relevant stats to support my arguments. But this simple task is more complicated that it seems. I’ve come across so many stats that seem authoritative and have been quoted many times by countless other articles. Seems legit, right? But dig further, and you start finding strange inconsistencies. Note also that a lot of these stats are also quoted by AI (why not, since so many articles quote the same stat, so means it’s more likely to be considered authoritative, according to AI)
🎯 One sentence summary: Tongue-in-cheek headline, but there’s the impact of downstream business impacts to consider as well, which might not go the way you think it might.
💬 One important quote: “It is tempting to conclude that occupations that have high overlap with activities AI performs will be automated and thus experience job or wage loss, and that occupations with activities AI assists with will be augmented and raise wages," wrote authors Kiran Tomlinson, Sonia Jaffe, Will Wang, Scott Counts, and Siddharth Suri. "This would be a mistake, as our data do not include the downstream business impacts of new technology, which are very hard to predict and often counterintuitive."
🗝️ One key takeaway: Downstream business impacts = how do people respond to this technology? And it could move in ways that you don’t expect
💭 Thoughts: OK yes, AI’s changing white-collar jobs. We know this already. But something else in this piece caught my attention - the reference of a 2015 study that ATMs actually led to an increase in bank branches and bank tellers. This got me thinking: can the rise of the machines and AI have the opposite effect on demand and action?
🎯 One sentence summary: We want people to treat AI like a normal technology, not the over-hyped “it will change your life!!!” beast it has become
💬 One important quote: “Technologies like LLMs have utility, but the absurd way they’ve been over-hyped, the fact they’re being forced on everyone, and the insistence on ignoring the many valid critiques about them make it very difficult to focus on legitimate uses where they might add value.”
🗝️ One key takeaway: We can build AI that isn’t centralized under the control of a handful of giant companies. Or any other definition of “good AI” that people might aspire to. But instead, we end up with the worst, most anti-social approaches because the platforms that have introduced “AI” to the public imagination are run by authoritarian extremists with deeply destructive agendas
💭 Thoughts: AI is actually a tool like every other and it has legitimate uses. But it’s the people and platforms that have built it that have turned it into a religion, almost like an extremist religion, which is why the whole thing smells like snake oil now.
6. And finally, a fun one! Airplane Facts With Max
🎯One sentence summary: One of my favourite Instagram accounts as he finds all kinds of ways to link random aircraft mechanic insider knowledge to random Lord of the Rings trivia. And there’s ALOT.
💭 Thoughts: Max links the most unrelated of airplane mechanic facts to random LOTR trivia (and there’s A LOT) - proof you can link the most mundane of things and make it interesting with sheer geeky power. I also appreciated the insider view of what an aircraft mechanic does. I know my previous links give a pretty miserable view of the Internet today, but this is a cute reminder that when used well, social media and the Internet can be a place where you CAN have fun (and learn some random LOTR trivia along the way)
Thanks for reading and being here! I compile these links out of fun, and I hope you enjoyed them too. Hit reply and tell me which link you saved for later.
