Kaitlin McCready

This has real mid-2000s vibes when corporate America thought putting a masseuse and a gym in the office would attract more employees.

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Welcome to Trust Issues We have too much information. And too little trust. Let's rethink what it means to communicate in work and life.

I’m rebooting this Substack to help people better understand what communications really is—trying to get someone to change something—and why it’s REALLY hard to do without trust.

Naturally, I learned this while getting heckled at a Brooklyn community board meeting:
open.substack.com/pub/readtrus...

And how that disrupts meaning making—experiences like this should bring a civic narrative to tangible life! Not introduce a new random tangent that takes people from saying "I just did an event that made me realize how important space for cyclists is" to "I went to a Stranger Things thing on a bike"

Full reference for any U.S. officials who are working on this:

Inside the American-Run Base Helping Plan the Future of Gaza

I dusted off my Prosci change management manual when I heard this.

The process to transform Gaza is happening...without the people it is intending to transform.

Rule 1 of change management: "Successful change requires both technical AND people sides."

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/w...

Thank you for doing this important work. It's impossible for even media-literate folks to parse through who's trustworthy and who's not. (And I guess that's their whole business model.)

One of America's Most Walkable School Districts Is About To Lose That Title — Streetsblog USA Lakewood, Ohio, prided itself on its Safe Routes to School program, which is in danger of being lost in a district-wide consolidation.

What’s the cost of one school closure and its neighborhood walkable school model in a suburb that’s as dense as D.C.?

@keawilson.bsky.social covers this important question that also happens to be important to me personally—Lakewood is my current home.

usa.streetsblog.org/2025/11/03/o...

If I die and go to heaven perhaps St. Peter or Giovanni Sartori will tell me what regime type I really lived in at this moment in time. Until then, as a matter of collective sensemaking, the degree matters less than the direction of change, which is obvious to anyone who wishes to see it. (2/3)

Trump Administration Live Updates: President Says He Is Removing Lisa Cook From Federal Reserve Board

It’s hard to overstate how big a deal this is - for the economy (ours and globally), for the rule of law, and for the proper and efficient function of government.

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08...

This reporting is the prime example of industry trade mag value

To be fair, they have to sell the dream. And the dream of all drivers is to not ever encounter other drivers.

But are the trade-offs worth it?

I know this is serious.

But all I see is a new name for a Bushwick club.

The Full Tesla Diner Menu, Revealed The diner will serve hamburgers, hot dogs, and “epic” bacon

And in other “experiential marketing” news 🤦‍♀️

la.eater.com/restaurant-o...

So instead of The Workshop easily advancing its brand of "benefitting humanity" (brand building), it's serving to unmuddle it (crisis mgmt).

OpenAI is using it to reeducate customers/stakeholders and differentiate from what is starting to feel like a flattening of AI features among companies (IMO).

What do all of these have in common?

They would have been more valuable to OpenAI at or before ChatGPT was handed to the masses with little guidance or instruction.

There are lots of reasons to open a "Workshop."

Primary: Educate prospects, demonstrate unique value prop, convert prospects to customers.

OpenAI plans to open first D.C. office next year OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is slated to speak at a conference hosted by the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

Smart move by OpenAI to launch a testing lab. Experiential marketing (i.e. pop-ups, permanent activations, user testing, etc.) is a useful tactic esp. for intangible brands (software, services).

I would have done it differently 🧵:

www.cnbc.com/2025/07/21/o... @ashleycapoot.cnbc.com

Counterpoint: This data doesn’t demonstrate an approval problem. It demonstrates a COMMUNICATIONS problem.

People don’t know what the federal govt is or what it does for them.

Biden Admin had the same problem. This is not new.

That persistency is the story.
apnews.com/article/poll...

Saying sorry for the small stuff is a brilliant comms strategy.

It gives him credibility to deny the big stuff.

Donald Trump Answers the Proust Questionnaire The billionaire reveals what he would change about himself. Hint: It’s on his head.

Reading The Power Broker. The civil service reform theories feel...familiar.

"Which historical figure do you most identify with? Considering his work and love for New York City, I would say Robert Moses."
- Donald Trump, 2004

www.vanityfair.com/culture/2004...

Excuse Me, but Your Theme Park Is Actually a Motif Park I just had a tour of your newly renovated theme park. I hate to be that guy, but I just want to mention that, while you refer to your destination a...

Literary snobbery x basic summer Americana.

AKA perfection.

Excuse Me, but Your Theme Park Is Actually a Motif Park www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/exc...

New game: Truth Social grift or text message scam?

Pair this with the cuts to public media and no emergency info will ever get through.

Shots fired by Truth Social (now Truth+? I’ve lost the thread on the brand).

😂😂😂

Love this connection! I was at the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, which was the team spurring electrified transportation and infrastructure. Everything from state tech support to software/hardware interoperability.

One of my theories of “how did it get so bad” is the increased distance (physical, mental) between average people and those who govern people. It wasn’t that long ago that fed govt was actually both. Now when I tell people I worked for the Dept of Energy, they react w/ a mix of wonder and caution.

We are in a transition moment for the clean energy industry. We need to make reckoning with the brand part of that.