My writing – Christopher Wink

Keynote: What marketers need to know about the creator economy

The creator economy may be big, or not. The numbers are somewhat divided because definitions are still evolving.

I took what I did know from covering, living and curating creator campaigns, and gave a keynote on the topic for the Philly Ad Club’s annual conference. They had roughly 150 marketers on site at the cozy innovation space of Independence Blue Cross’s headquarters.

Find my slides here. A rough audio recording of the presentation can be found here (or here).

I published here a piece informed by this work.

Why are there so few tech apprenticeships?

Backed by a research project on tech workforce development that I am leading with Technical.ly for our client Accenture, I got the chance to share high-level findings.

Ahead of National Apprenticeship Week, I gave a 10-minute talk, which was broadly about apprenticeships but included a bit of general tech workforce and tech economy basics and some Philadelphia-specific detail. Find the slides here, and a story I wrote on the topic here.

Free speech guarantees your right to speak, not your right for it to be heard

At 3:40 in this interview, Walz speaks of misinformation on elections

This was originally a social video here.

That’s Minnesota Governor Tim Walz in an interview last year that’s being resurfaced now that he’s the presumptive Democratic nominee for Vice President. And for good reason, critics are rightly pointing out that he’s flatly wrong when he says (at roughly 3:40 in the video) that free speech doesn’t protect misinformation or hate speech.

Temple University is a mess. Let’s fix it.

This was originally a social media rant published here.

Temple University is a mess. Let’s fix it.

I’m an alumnus of Temple, and a resident of Philadelphia, but even if you aren’t either of those things, what the school represents can matter to you if you care about the future of cities, and economic mobility and, sure, higher education too.

The Undercover Economist: notes from Tim Harford’s 2005 debut

“Economics is about who gets what and why.”

It’s a fundamental part of how the world works, so everyone should better understand how an economy works. So argues business journalist Tim Harford in his 2005 debut book The Undercover Economist, informed by his syndicated columns. Published the same year as the breakout success Freakonomics, The Undercover Economist helped establish a category of pop economics nonfiction books to help explain the world. They’re heavily influenced by behavioral economics and mix in lots of real world examples. Harford was part of a wave of writers that brought in greater familiarity with otherwise arcane economics concepts, a trend that has only continued the last 15 years.

That’s fitting a trend to less academic and more practical uses of the field of economics. Keynes wanted economists to be not great theorists but “rather like dentists” to solve everyday problems. Harford has been part of the movement to make it so.

Below I share my notes from the book for future reference.

The Authoritarian Moment: notes from Ben Shapiro’s 2021 book

Ben Shapiro is combative and media savvy enough that he has quickly become one of the country’s best known stewards of conservatism’s future.

The conservative commentator and Daily Wire founder has staked out some considerably right-wing opinions and built a reputation for college-campus debates, in which he and progressive 20-somethings spar for social media attention. In July 2021, he published The Authoritarian Moment, his argument against the popular narrative that conservatives represent the greatest risk of authoritarianism. The greater risk is from the left, he says.

I read generously, but Shapiro just does not come across like a good-faith actor.

Some whiskey stories

I reviewed a turkey-flavor whiskey, and prominent radio show Preston & Steve referenced my review — by literally reading my words without exactly referencing them 🙂

I also wrote about Pennsylvania’s rising rye whiskey.

I did a weekly whiskey review clip with my friend April.

Here’s a list of Pennsylvania whiskey distilleries (and a few stories too)

Pennsylvania was once the country’s largest producer of whiskey, and rye whiskey was its showcase.

I wrote about this history and the Pennsylvania rye renaissance for NPR affiliate WHYY and its Billy Penn news site. I am personally fascinated by this trend and its history. A couple years back, ahead of the American Whiskey Convention, I found an angle that made sense to be published on Generocity.org, the nonprofit industry news site my company publishes. This year as the convention returned, I felt like I’d be stretching our editorial focus to force another story. Instead I asked friend and Billy Penn editor Danya Henninger if she was interested. Thanks much to Danya for a thorough edit on what I delivered her. Turns out I’m a far more experienced business and economics reporter than I am culture.

I have written here about my relationship to alcohol, and specifically how I’ve come to most enjoy whiskey. Heck, I even have opinions about what cups should be used for what liquid. But this was something else: a chance to begin putting to work the years of my tracking an industry in change.

Do read the story. Here I thought I’d share a few stories I’ve had squirreled away and maintain a list of Pennsylvania whiskey distilleries (because I suspect this will keep growing and I don’t want to annoy Danya anymore with updates). Find both below.

Homo Deus: notes on Yuval Noah Harrari 2017 book

Advancements in artificial intelligence could bring about a world in which humans are secondary to self-learning algorithms.

That’s one of the big themes in the 2017 book Homo Deus, a followup by historian and popular intellectual Yuval Noah Harrari on his 2014 book Sapiens. Even more than his first, Homo Deus has been criticized for its wide-sweeping generalizations and his science generalizations. Harrari is one of the chief architects of a kind of techno-pessism so I still find his approach helpful to follow.

He’s a great storyteller, and beyond any debunked science, he engages with concepts I found interesting. I’m sharing notes here for myself. The book is worth reading if only to grasp a view on the treacherous waters some fear are coming due to technical advancements.