Welcome to Snafu, a newsletter about authentic influence in a chaotic world.

A couple of years ago I discovered a little known Zoom hack – and get more praise for this on a weekly basis than practically anything else I do.

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Upgrade Your Zoom Waiting Room

A couple of years ago I discovered a little Zoom hack – and it gets more unsolicited praise than almost anything else I do.

It works like this: if you have a paid Zoom account, You can play a video or display an image while someone is waiting in your Zoom waiting room.

I take a lot of meetings on Zoom, and many for the first time. This serves as a great introduction! Here's the video that currently plays in my waiting room – though I change it out a couple of times a year.

This can be done with any photo or video you have available, and setting it up takes 5 minutes.

​Here are directions.

If you spend any time in Zoom meetings, surprise people before the meeting even starts!

3 Things I’ve Loved This Week

Article I’m Reading:

​Why Tech Start-Ups Are Spending Big on Hype Videos​

One of the debates I’ve had a lot in the last 18 months is “What is the future of video?” I’ve been running Zander Media for ~8 years now, as a narrative strategy and video company. With as fast as AI is changing, it’s anyone’s guess what the future of video production looks like.

​This article from the New York Times discusses something I’ve been seeing: AI companies investing heavily in high-quality video production. (Famously, OpenAI spent $10,000 to make this video with Jony Ive.)

It has never been easier to build software, and never harder to break through. Video – it turns out – is one of the ways folks are trying.

Tool I’m Using:

​BrainHQ Brain Training​

I’ve recently gotten back into using BrainHQ, one of the most scientifically credible brain-training platforms.

BrainHQ is backed by more than 100 scientific papers showing benefits, including 20-year longitudinal studies of 1000s of users measurably reduced dementia. Here’s a recent article from NPR, as well as the Alzheimer's Association Journal article.

These exercises are somewhat infuriating – but in a good way. This isn’t feel-good mindless gaming. You have to work to complete any given exercise, and the system keeps you on a razor's edge of failure.

When I practice BrainHQ for a few minutes every day, I legitimately feel my cognitive function improve.

Quote I’m Considering:

“If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will.” –Steve Jobs

It's a bit of a dramtic way to think about reinvention, but increasingly important.

Want more?

Until next week,
Robin