What the World Baseball Classic taught me about B2B sales:

With the World Baseball Classic coming to a close tonight, this would have been the perfect opportunity to write some LinkedIn AI-slop like “What the USA’s WBC run taught me about running my own business.” But I’m not going to do that to you.

Well, not really.

What I am going to talk about this week is vibes and values, and how I see those playing out in the WBC between teams who are clearly having fun (hola, Dominicana!) and teams who are treating this like they are literally at war with other nations (*cough* TEAM USA *cough*).

There's been a lot of commentary about this on social media, where people have noted the extremely disparate clubhouse climates.

I mean, the Dominican team is dancing in the dugout. Italy is doing espresso shots after every home run. And the USA is ... getting a pep talk from a guy who killed Osama bin Laden?​

The vibes are extremely off. It's giving post-9/11 'Murica 🦅 machismo, and I am so not into that.

I've loved baseball since I was a kid because, despite what the haters would have you believe, it's fun as hell to watch! I understand that the World Baseball Classic is a huge, international competition of all the best baseball talent from across the globe. And I know that players and fans alike take it very, very seriously.

But it's a game. There should be an element — arguably a primary element — of joy. Because what's the point of a game if you're not having fun?

(This is where I'm going to pivot into my LinkedIn-esque spiel, so bear with me.)

I was asked this week what I do, and what differentiates me from other social media managers. And I realized, it's not that I take this work seriously. I mean, I do, of course — it's my job. But I also genuinely enjoy the work, the people I work with, and the values I'm able to imbue in the work I produce.

It brings me joy! I'm having fun!

But I'm also bringing my values to the work. My response included the line, "Social media is not to make money — it is to build community. And while small businesses need to make money to survive, I want to help them do it in a way that shows genuine care for the people they're serving."

Imagine if Team USA was applying a similar value to the World Baseball Classic. Maybe their statement would say something like, "Baseball is not just about winning — it's about having fun. And while we do want to play our best and win as many games as we can, we want to do it in a way that brings us and our fans the most joy possible."

That would be a team I felt aligned with. That would be a team worth rooting for. And to be honest? I bet that team would be a lot more fun to watch.

Let's be real: There's enough war and greed in this world. People are not looking for that energy in the sportsball they watch for entertainment.

Let's bring back joy. Let's bring back community.

Because that shit? That's the real win.

👓 Meta is launching surveillance features in the midst of World War III and hoping no one will notice. Literally. They’re upgrading their smart glasses to add AI-powered facial recognition features, and choosing to roll it out now because we’re in the midst of a "dynamic political environment," and "many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.”

🔑 Also part of the Meta surveillance state, Instagram is ending encrypting messages on the app, effective May 8. So like … move your chats off of there. And maybe stop sending any information you wouldn’t want your personally assigned FBI agent to have.

📹 On a lighter note, Edits released a whole bunch of new features designed to make your captions POP! ( … But also fucked something up in the coding so now captions are laggy as hell or don’t actually show up in time with what’s being said in the video. Hopefully they’ll figure this out sooner than later because it’s lowkey ruining my life.)

🔗 Meta is testing out allowing users to add links to their Instagram captions. But you have to be verified, and apparently there’s a limit on how many posts can include links … ? TBD how this rolls out.

⚾ In case it's not obvious from the top of this newsletter, I've been watching a lot of baseball. We have another week and a half before the MLB season starts, and a whole four and a half months (!!) before the Women's Professional Baseball League launches its inaugural season!

🥎 Closely related to my excitement for women's baseball, I somehow got talked into coaching my youngest kiddo's softball team! I've never coached (or even played) softball before, but the rules are like, 80% the same as baseball, so I'm just going to do my best and hope none of these kids ask too many questions.

📚 I just started The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe and it's ... kind of ruining my vibe. It's nice to know, as a student of history, that there is a historical reason for the way the world is the way it is now. But WHEW. "This is how the world works and there's not a whole lot you can do to fix it" is a hell of a thesis.

🥧 We recently discovered that my oldest kiddo has a gluten intolerance, so I'm now exploring the wonderful world of gluten-free foods. Please send me your recommendations for crockpot recipes (because you know I don't cook) and wheatless baked goods!

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