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Articles by Kerry Morrison
It’s Not AI That’s Failing - It’s Corporate America
MIT’s 2025 GenAI Divide study has been making the rounds this week. It says 95% of generative AI pilots had zero measurable impact on profit and loss. Cue the headlines: AI is overhyped. AI isn’t ready. AI can’t deliver for real business. The tools aren’t perfect, but large language models are already capable of unbelievable things. The real problem?
Build Small, Win Big: The Superpower Era
We have tools that turn non-coders into coders. Non-builders into builders. And teams of one into studios. That shift changes what we build, who we build for, and how value gets made. Why This Moment Is Different The old game: big software for big audiences. Huge scopes. Heavy overhead. Long roads to maybe. The new game: tiny products for tiny tribes. Hyper-specific jobs. Weeks, not quarters. Near-zero overhead. Pick a micro-market that cares too much about a very particular pain.
I Feel It Like a Drumbeat in My Sternum - Nothing Will Ever Be the Same Again
I’ve ridden every swell in the digital world of marketing and software since dial-up screeched, but nothing has rocked me like the last six months. This isn’t some trend cycling through, it’s the rules of the game rewriting themselves in real time. What worked last year feels like operating a typewriter in a smartphone world. The market moved, the buyers moved, and half the industry is still setting up camp where the customers used to be.
Prompt and Pray, or Build and Win?
If you’ve used AI lately, you’ve felt it. That little hit of progress when ChatGPT gives you a cleaner draft, a tighter paragraph, a task off your plate. It feels like leverage. Feels like you’re working smarter. But for most people, it stops there. A prompt here. A tweak there. Copy, paste, repeat. It’s helpful. But it’s also shallow. Because let’s be honest: You’re still in the loop. Still steering. Still doing the work — just with faster tools. You prompt. You wait. You edit. You ship. Over and over again.
The Price of Quality in a “Good Enough” Market
Every freelancer I know is struggling to start 2025. Sadly, it’s pretty clear why… When times are tough, people don’t want the best, they want shit done. Running a business has always meant managing trade-offs. You want your work to be perfect — your words sharp, your code clean, your designs polished. Then reality hits: time and money. Those relentless bastards. Working solo, you can occasionally bend these rules. Put in extra hours. Polish more. Add a team or face economic pressure? Everything changes.
The Day I Learned That Selling Isn’t About Selling
Kerry Morrison · Follow 2 min read · -- I was working for one of the big consulting firms when I had a moment that should have changed my life. It just took me ten years to realize it. That morning, like every other, I showed up to work sleep-deprived and grumpy. I hadn’t made it two steps into the office when my boss walked over and said, “We need you in LA. Your flight leaves at noon.” Work travel loses its appeal fast when it’s constant and last-minute. Anyway. I get to LA.
The Permission You Never Needed
I spent most of my career convinced I wasn’t creative. Surrounded by designers, writers, and photographers making magic, I thought my role was simple: help them do their thing and stay out of the way. When you’re surrounded by naturally gifted people, it’s easy to believe you don’t belong. That’s the story I carried for years: no design background, no writing degree, no clue what a past participle is. Creativity just wasn’t my thing — or so I thought.
The Power of Radical Focus (When Everything Screams ‘Do More’)
Kerry Morrison · Follow 5 min read · -- Photo by Chase Clark on Unsplash Ask people what they want, and they’ll lie to you. Not intentionally, but consistently. There are two things I think about when I’m working with people, and we’re trying to drill down to what problem their product ( or service ) is solving. You’d think this would be easy.
Make Yourself Unfireable
A friend of mine is convinced he’s about to be fired. He’s a mid-level exec, makes a couple hundred grand a year, and spends most of it. Early in his career, he’d walk out the door from one job and right into another. But he’s approaching the age where people are less impressed by his CV, more concerned by his age, and tripped up on the idea of having to pay that kind of salary. Maybe that can’t replace him for someone costing way less. But if they can get 60% of him for half as much, they will.
Don't Be a Dick
Don't insult your potential customers. And never make assumptions in your outreach. You may offer the most outstanding email marketing service ever imagined in the history of man. But if your outreach says anything along the lines of; "struggling with email?" Or, "finally, you can get email working for your business." Or, my favorite, "stop sending emails that don't work." People will not go any further in the process. You can make the same points without the blame.
No one gives a shit about you
Not you personally. I'm sure you are a fantastic human and worthy of love. But when it comes to what you're building, the product you're selling, or the service you're offering. People do not care about you. They don't give a hoot about your features or your promises. They do not care about how the sausage is made or why you think what you have is the greatest invention since toast. Your audience cares about one thing and one thing only. What can you do for them. That's it.
AI is Nothing Without You
AI doesn't know if it's spitting out gold or garbage - but you better. Let's talk ChatGPT and Claude. They're game-changers, no doubt about it. But here's the thing: they're only as good as the brains ( and the experience ) behind the keyboard. Think about it. These AIs are like super-smart parrots. So very good at combining words and phrases that go well together. But there is no feeling there. No judgment on whether those words resonate emotionally.
Don't Mumble
The best piece of advice from one of my favorite business books. Don't mumble. It's from a book called Writing That Works. David Ogilvy said everyone should read it three times. And as always, he was right. This example is from the first few pages: Instead of this ... It is generally desirable to communicate your thoughts in a forthright manner. Toning your point down and tiptoeing around it may, in many circumstances, tempt the reader to tune out and allow his mind to wander. Don't mumble.
Why Marketing and Product Need Each Other
Your marketing team and your product team shouldn't be separate. They're both the story of what you make and who you are. Sales is simply marketing with a closing mindset, but that's for another time. The sooner you get these two groups working closely inside your company, the better your business will be and the larger your success will be. When I was 21 or 22, I was sent to a marketing seminar in San Francisco.
Are you building an audience or just renting one?
Which is the better way to get customers and build an audience? Path A: You invest time and resources in creating valuable content, telling your brand's story, and fostering genuine connections with your audience. Path B: You pour money into ads, seeing immediate traffic spikes and quick conversions.
Why Great Writing is Your Ultimate Superpower
I do not understand people who don't want to be better writers. We live in a world where words make a difference. Every email you write. Every presentation you put together. And every offer you craft is an opportunity to sell yourself and your ideas. Why would you not want to be good at that? I would tell anyone who wants to get better to learn from the masters. David Ogilvy is my favorite. But there are others. Here's someone you can also learn from. Gary Bencivenga. Master copywriter. Brilliant salesman.
How to Influence Clients Without Overstepping
I have a rule with my clients. I'll give my advice on how we should solve a problem three times. If, after three times, they want to go in another direction, or they believe the solution they have in mind is better, we go with theirs.
How to Nail Your Story in Just a Few Sentences
Almost every founder I talk with has the same struggle. They don't know how to tell the story of what they're doing. They can talk for hours about the space they're in or the elegance of their solution. But ask them to boil things down to one or two sentences.
The Story of You
By Kerry Morrison If you're starting anything, I beg you to document the journey. Take photos, record videos, and make voice recordings. Just capture it. Because, before you have a killer product, you have the unique story of you. So tell it. Show people what you're doing, take them along for the ride, and make them feel a part of something bigger.
It's Not What You Think
What if I told you that the secret to Warren Buffett's success is not some complex investment strategy but something so simple, so , that it's often overlooked? Would you believe me? Welcome to our exploration of an often-underappreciated truth: Better Comes from Boring. In a world intoxicated by the allure of the new and shiny, we're often running after the latest trend, the most exciting innovation.
The Hidden Formula to Writing Copy that Converts
In the bustling marketplace of the digital world, getting noticed is the first hurdle. But what's next? How do you compel your audience to pause, read, and ultimately, take action? The answer lies in mastering the art of conversion copywriting. Writing copy that converts. This isn't about being the loudest or the flashiest. It's about crafting a message that resonates, persuades, and moves your readers to act. It's about discovering and implementing the hidden formula to writing copy that converts.
World Systems Solutions Introduces Global Utility to Solve Climate Crisis
Skip to content Home » Good for Santa Barbara » World Systems Solutions Introduces Global Utility to Solve Climate Crisis At its Spring Gala at the Music Academy of the West, World Systems Solutions (WSS) introduced the PHOENIX World Transformation Platform, an global utility dedicated to the rapid development and delivery of solutions to address the climate crisis The platform works through a system of artificial intelligence (AI)-supported collaboration modules, empowering diverse global...
What the World Can Learn From an Italian City’s Approach to Mental Health
This article is co-published with Zócalo Public Square. Mental illness haunts me in two different ways. The first surrounds me, living and working in Los Angeles daily. When I see people half naked, lying on the hot sidewalk, on my way to the trendy new coffee house.
Op-Ed: Don’t give up on HHH
by Nick Halaris and Kerry Morrison In 2016, Los Angeles residents voted overwhelmingly to approve Measure HHH, creating $1.2 billion in funding for the construction of 10,000 units of permanent supportive housing. Five years later, the HHH program finds itself increasingly in the crosshairs of politicians and city leaders frustrated by a homeless crisis which shows no signs of abating.
Startup Funding: How to Get Money For An Early-Stage Startup
The recipe for a successful business: one brilliant idea, strong enthusiasm and initial capital. If the last ingredient is all you need, I’ll tell you where to get startup funding. Before you start raising funds in the project, the main thing is to understand the various stages of its life cycle. This will help determine what way (or combination of methods) you take to obtain startup financing.
Six things I had to unlearn moving from academia to entrepreneurship. By Sridhar Iyengar
Sridhar Iyengar founded three tech startups, including Misfit, which sold for $260m. But first he had to stop thinking like a scientist Sridhar Iyengar is the founder and CEO of Elemental Machines, makers of smart IoT products for the life-sciences industry. He was previously a founder of Misfit, acquired by Fossil in 2015 for $260m, and founded AgaMatrix, a blood-glucose monitoring company that made the world’s first medical device connecting directly to the iPhone.
The right way to handle homeless mental illness
Until February, for 22 years, I managed a business improvement district around the Hollywood Walk of Fame — a top destination for global tourists that bears witness to our country’s abandonment of people struggling with severe and untreated mental illness. Daily, I’d see the faces of shocked foreign tourists walking past ragged people huddled in doorways or sitting half-naked on a bus bench yelling at the traffic.
Labels Are Not Helpful When Applied to “the Homeless”
In my early 20’s, I worked for the Harbor Regional Center for Developmentally Disabled Citizens. This was in 1980, when the state’s regional center system was less than a decade old. I recall one of the first lessons I learned: avoid labels when referring to clients. The agency’s title led by example: it was not called “for the developmentally disabled.” That lesson has remained top of mind for 35 years. We continue to see how dysfunctional it is to label and generalize.
Public should demand Salton Sea action at state level
The State of California is not living up to its responsibility to protect the health and well-being of the residents of the Coachella and Imperial valleys. Due to a water transfer referred to as the Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA), significant inflows of water currently flowing into the Salton Sea will be diverted, beginning January 2018, to urban water districts.
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