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Today’s podcast

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SETH GODIN The writer’s room

It’s quite likely that your favorite TV show wasn’t written by a single person. There’s a room filled with professionals, bouncing ideas back and forth, provoking each other and creating a script.

The songs on your favorite artist’s hit record might have been written by them, but the music involved other musicians, engineers, producers and perhaps compression, digital editing and tuning.

The most famous magicians in the world often hire other magicians to devise and produce the tricks they perform.

And every author I know uses a spell checker, an outside editor and other support to create their work.

We understand this, it’s part of the creation process.

Rembrandt had a studio of artisans, as does Kehinde Wiley. They didn’t make their own paint, either.

Almost nothing we encounter is fully handmade if we want to be literal about the “hand” part.

When an artist, entrepreneur or organizer says, “I made this,” what they almost certainly mean is, “the people and tools and tech in my writer’s room made this with my help and under my direction.” And that writer’s room goes all the way back to the influences beginning before kindergarten.

And yet, every time the scale or technological prowess of the assistance in the studio ratchets up, it makes us uncomfortable. Powerful new tech makes creators wary, and some consumers and patrons as well.

Until it doesn’t.

Then it’s normal. Then the standards are set and we have trouble imagining productive work without them. Painters who use artificial light so they can work at night. Artists who use a camera instead of a paintbrush. Photographers who use autofocus or digital cameras…

When we use a new technology as a shortcut to replace our judgment, we’ve handed over the human part, and it won’t work. The magic disappears.

But when we use new technology to provoke and amplify, when we use it for tasks instead of projects, we’re doing what we’ve always done–creating something for the people we seek to serve. Work that matters for people who care, created with vision and risk.

The quality of your work is directly related to the skills and agenda of the people and tools in your writer’s room.

October 21, 2025