About
Building SAANA
Activity
4K followers
-
Aaron T Smith shared thisShout out SHE Media. I've never seen branding like this in an ads.txt file...
-
Aaron T Smith posted thisAnother year, another Digiday Miami. Anytime I am fortunate enough to attend this event, I always remind myself: Aaron, you are blessed. Whether you're a VIP and Digiday paid for your hotel suite, or if that’s practically all your company paid for and there’s five of you in there sharing a badge... You are blessed. If you have the privilege of attending this event, you are blessed. Blessed to be employed, blessed your company would bestow this responsibility on you, blessed that you’re even physically capable of attending an event. The list can be infinite if you want it to be. Digiday is a constant reminder that the business of digital publishing changes too quickly. DSPs and publishers go out of business overnight, but the one thing that remains the same is the incredibly smart and ambitious people who come together for three days to try and solve publishing’s existential problems. If you’re one of these people, you are blessed. And I am blessed to have the opportunity to meet you. See how this works? Can't hardly wait, see you soon!
-
Aaron T Smith shared thisRemember, it doesn't matter if you win or lose. Just that you say ‘AI’ a hundred times before the 9th hole ⛳️
-
Aaron T Smith shared thisThree days ago Amazon announced it was acquiring iRobot, the maker of the Roomba vacuum, for $1.7B. Here are some of hottest takes on why (in order of spiciness): 🥵 This is the most intrusive data set acquisition in Amazon's history as iRobot's Roomba collects information about homes as they clean. It knows where the furniture is kept and the size of each room. It's not just a vacuum but a mapping device. Through Alexa, Ring, and now Roomba, Amazon is creating a full on surveillance state of consumer's homes. 🌶 Amazon’s iRobot acquisition is all part of a broader strategy to ensure its Prime service stays top of consumers’ minds, and by selling more hardware products that connect to the platform, it does just that. iRobot helps Amazon win the home robot market by using the same pricing scheme on Roomba that it uses to sell Echo, Ring, Kindle, etc. It can predatorily price its competition out of the market while also gaining a monopoly in the process. 🫑 Amazon wants to dominate the Smart Home space which integrates with Alexa and Ring. Plus, iRobot’s devices are already Alexa-capable, so iRobots own engineers are already rather familiar with Amazon’s technology. Buying iRobot allows Amazon to acquie-hire experts in home robotics, improve margins, and cross sell more Smart Home accessories.
-
Aaron T Smith posted thisI'm sitting on the tarmac at LaGuardia airport right now about to join the thousands who'll be attending the Digiday Publishing Summit in Vail, CO. This is my first in person event in over two years and I couldn't be more excited to meet with the greatest minds and personalities in ad tech and digital publishing. With the top brass of the industry showing up for this event, I'm curious what the median income is of the average attendee… My guess is it's way north of $100K. However, the maids in the hotels we're all staying at make in an hour less than the cost of a drink and sandwich at any of the surrounding bars and restaurants in Vail. The Uber drivers who’ll be chauffeuring everyone around? They're likely working 12 hours days while at the same time paying historically high gas prices. The servers and bus boys are also working double shifts because the restraunts that employ them can't hire enough people. All of them are feeling the impact of record inflation. So, to my fellow Digiday attendees, as we all descend upon Vail for the next three days, please be sure to TIP and TIP GENEROUSLY. Gratuity amount should depend not just on the service, but on the affluence of the person being served as well. The Chief Revenue Officer can share some of her good fortune with the driver who just took her the 120 minutes from the Denver airport. The SVP can share some of his with the maid who just spent the past 45 minutes cleaning his suite. If you're attending this event, in one way or another, you are blessed. Make sure to pay it forward to all those who serve and help you this week. See you on the slopes!
-
Aaron T Smith posted thisThe older you get, the more self aware you become. The more self aware you become, the more you realize a lot of your success and failure isn't your fault.
-
Aaron T Smith posted thisI feel terrible for the people of Ukraine, but I can't empathize with them. I have never once in my life felt truly unsafe and essentially powerless to do anything about it. Never once has my life been in jeopardy and the only two solutions were: 1) Stay put, and risk my home collapsing 2) Leave, and risk getting killed on the way to safety Very few people have ever had to make this decision. And yet, this is the decision millions of Ukrainians are having to make right now. Sure, I’ve willingly put myself in dangerous situations that didn't feel safe, like skydiving or going to a second location with someone I met at a music festival. But my life and my home have never truly been threatened. Even while living in Missouri during the Great Flood of ‘93 when the threat of evacuating my home was always very real, it was on account of impending water. Not on impending tanks. The worst-case scenario was we that we would have to move to higher ground. We didn’t have to move to another country. I've never felt that the immediate safety of my family could be decided by a man other than me - a man in a high castle, thousands of miles away, who doesn't even know I exist. He just thinks that my country shouldn't. To be born, just by chance, in the United States of America - and to have never lived through an invasion on domestic soil - is an incredible privilege in and of itself. Anyone born and raised here has never felt that kind of threat. This is a privilege I am now truly grateful for, as I am seeing in real-time what the alternative can be. While I can’t empathize with Ukraine, I can do the next best thing: educate myself. Educate myself on the history of this conflict, and more importantly, educate myself on what I can do to help. While donating to the Red Cross is obviously important (https://lnkd.in/dTHZaGe4), a way to help I hadn't originally considered was supporting local journalism in Ukraine. You can help keep accurate news coming out of Ukraine by donating directly to The Kyiv Independent, a Ukraine-based English-language newspaper. By donating (https://lnkd.in/dvnUu_Ye), you can help journalists relocate, set up back-up offices, and continue their operations from neighboring countries. There is no excuse not to be doing something to help. This is not just a war against Ukraine, it is a war against democracy and the world. #standwithukraine
-
Aaron T Smith posted thisI am baffled by the concept of the"side-hustle." Today, as a result of the mechanization of agriculture, manufacturing, and other domestic work, the number of hours a person spends working each day has dramatically been reduced - leaving more time for leisure. Prior to the American Civil War, the average laborer in the United States worked ten-to-twelve hours per day, six-to-seven days per week, fifty-one weeks per year - regardless of their industry. As a result, very few individuals enjoyed more than two hours per day pursuing a leisure activity. During the decades spanning 1965 to 2003, in contrast, the amount of leisure time the typical American is afforded has increased by 5.1 hours per week on average. And the notion that a person should fill this free time by creating a 2nd job for themselves? Filling their mornings, after hours, and weekends with more stress and responsibility? Creating a whole new base of clients to serve? Turning every available moment into some opportunity for a ROI? Why... Me? I'd rather go fly a kite.
-
Aaron T Smith posted thisWhy am I suddenly posting on LinkedIn? In so many words, this was what I asked myself after a friend texted me last Friday essentially asking the same thing. Why have I started posting somewhat frequently on a social network I have been resigned to passively and reactively using for most of my life? What is the new side hustle I must be pursuing… Do I suddenly have an eBook to sell? No. Paid newsletter? Still no. Digital course? Haha, no. 1:1 coaching session? Definitely, no. Am I seeking any sort of monetizable outcome from my effort in doing this? Nope. Then why? I’ll tell you. Two weeks ago I came to the (somewhat depressing) realization that almost all of my writing post college has focused 95% around emails. Sending requests, seeking directions, asking for commitments, coordinating time, offering feedback, etc. Basically all of the writing I've done for the past decade has already had some sort of monetizable outcome as the end goal: My job. And now I'm starting to use Linkedin to do essentially the opposite of that. Pretty counterintutive, I know. But there it is. I'm just doing this for my own benefit and that benefit has nothing to do with making money. Hope that's okay with everyone.
-
Aaron T Smith liked thisAaron T Smith liked thisWe have forgotten the value of waiting. I recently celebrated my son’s fifth birthday, and watching his excitement around his presents reminded me of a green BMX bike I desperately wanted as a child. I waited months for that bike. When I finally got it, it meant everything to me. Part of what made it so special was the anticipation. Today, almost anything we want can arrive at our door tomorrow. Convenience is wonderful, but when everything is instantly available, it becomes harder for anything to feel truly special. There’s a lesson here for the natural diamond industry. We cannot compete on abundance, nor should we. Natural diamonds are rare, finite and formed over billions of years. Our opportunity is to remind consumers why that rarity matters and why some things are worth waiting for. That green BMX taught me something I still believe today: value isn’t about having more. It’s about recognizing what is worth having.
-
Aaron T Smith liked thisAaron T Smith liked thisThe real MVP (for me) last week at Drive by Exit Five was my wife. This year my wife and two kids were supposed to travel with me to Stowe. It was going to be her first year actually seeing the event. For two and a half years now she's heard me vent about it, stress about it, and put the kids down solo while I was working late nights the last few weeks. In 2024, our daughter was 6 months old. Too young to travel. In 2025, my wife was 6 months pregnant with our son. Plus an 18 month old. Travel nightmare. And this year, we decided to go for it. We booked an Airbnb in Stowe the weekend before Drive, space for my my parents and sisters too. But then 2 hours before we were supposed to leave for the airport, our son woke up sick with an ear infection. So we made a last minute call in the middle of the night for them to stay back. A huge disappointment for my wife who spent two weeks packing for our kids and planning a 10 day trip in New England. Any parent knows this is just normal parent stuff. Not a big deal. But when your spouse makes sacrifices for you, for your career, for your business... that is a big deal to you. She didn't complain, she stayed home, got sick herself, and still called every night to see how I was doing. That's my MVP.
-
Aaron T Smith liked thisAaron T Smith liked thisI repeat: Walk, do not run, to the nearest exit. Launched Rehab.ai in less than 90 minutes, and it’s already better than 90% of the websites in the addiction treatment space. Rehab.ai agents are grounded in three principles: 1. We are data-driven. 2. We will never sell advertising. 3. We will iterate to infinity.
-
Aaron T Smith liked thisAaron T Smith liked thisLast night, I had the pleasure of joining my friend Pete Kadens at Chicago State University to kick the semester off as his first guest speaker for his “Mastering Wealth” course. We talked about my personal and career journey, the sacrifices and bets that shaped it, and a few lessons I’ve learned along the way: bet on yourself, understand the difference between earning and owning, and always send the elevator back down. I loved the students’ curiosity, questions and ambition. Pete’s commitment to giving them access to people and perspectives that can help change the trajectory of their lives is a lesson for all. To whom much is given, much is required. Grateful to have been part of it!
-
Aaron T Smith liked thisAaron T Smith liked thisA month ago, I posted the Top 10 things going on in my life after Intuit laid me off. Then I got to work on them. A few of you have since asked, gently, which ones were real — and which were just talk. Fair. So here's the honest scorecard, starting with the one I least expected to be the headline. The music thing got real. Item #4 was a new project with my friend Adam and his singing partner Lisa — a month ago just "too much talent and drive not to make it more legit." Since then we've played two actual gigs: a free show in the park and a backyard party. Standing there nailing "She Talks to Angels" and "Take It Easy" in front of real people felt every bit as good as I'd hoped. Adam and Lisa are lit up about this chapter, and we're already re-tooling the setlist — hunting for songs that are timeless, that the three of us agree on, and that play to our voices and our guitars. Turns out the open mics weren't a phase. The motorcycle, too (#8). I'm a more confident rider than I was in June — confident enough that I'm riding the Gypsy Run into upstate New York later this month. And then there's the part I was quietest about — which is the part quietly taking off. Mirror Full Coaching (#2). A month ago I wrote "more soon" and left it there. Time to make good on it: I'm carrying a full, steady book — the same volume I've had all year — and the work has only gotten harder and more interesting. Mostly senior people in the thick of a mid-career transition, trying to figure out what's genuinely next when the old game stops fitting. It's not generic career coaching. It's for accomplished operators ready to use everything they've built on their own terms. There's also a renovation design business my wife and I are rebuilding together — and I'll be honest, we've made more progress in the last two weeks than in the previous six years. We've sharpened who it's really for, what it's genuinely worth to them, and how we take it to market. I'm not naming it yet — we're a couple of weeks from a rebrand and a launch I don't want to spoil — but keep an eye on this space. More soon. For real this time. Here's what a month actually taught me: that list wasn't a to-do list. It was ten flags in the ground. And the flags I planted loudest aren't always the ones growing fastest — sometimes the quiet ones are. If a few of your own flags have gone quiet since the spring, that might be the update worth writing. Helping people get honest about that exact question — what's real, what's noise, what's next — is the work I do at Mirror Full Coaching. The book's active, and I have room for more of the right people. If that's you, my inbox is open.
-
Aaron T Smith liked thisAaron T Smith liked thisWhat if recovery came with a menu instead of a script? Today, in honor of the start of Recovery Month, I’m opening presales for Beyond the Twelve: Overcoming Addiction Without the Script. The book profiles thirteen Nebraska addiction professionals who found recovery, built careers helping others, and eventually began questioning some of the assumptions they had been taught about addiction and recovery, in addition to telling my story and breaking down the twelve-step programs and our field's love affair with them in unexpected ways. This isn’t an argument that twelve-step programs don’t work. They clearly work for some people. It is instead an explanation for why some people prefer to forge a different path. One that is individualized and won't follow the preordained script. Presales are $24.95 with U.S. shipping included. The first 250 copies will be signed and individually numbered. Preorder: https://lnkd.in/g_H_xinb #beyondthetwelve #recoverymonth #withoutthescript
-
Aaron T Smith liked thisAaron T Smith liked thisPlane thoughts: You always feel a bit special not to order booze at 9am on the flight. A sense of comfort and relief. “At least they’re not worried I’m going to get irate and make a big stink and assault the flight attendant. I’m just here minding my own business reading my book. I’m a good passenger. Just coffee for me thanks. Yup. I’m a normal well adjusted person.” Maybe that’s just me. See you shortly London. (PS Testing a new content format called “actual real thoughts from my crazy brain.”)
-
Aaron T Smith liked thisAaron T Smith liked thisThe day has finally come. I have published the workbook, "Beyond the Twelve: A User's Guide - A Workbook for Navigating the Intersection of Addiction and Change (without the Twelve-Step programs" Thanks to all who supported the process. Here's what you will find within: - A potent analogy for what needs to be done to overcome addictive behaviors. - Multiple journal prompts that help you track your progress as you go down the road. - Embracing the philosophy of person-first change, wherein goals of abstinence, moderation, and/or harm reduction are accepted. - Over 15 extensive activities that help you to prioritize your values, goals, and relationships on your journey towards Change. - Information about the following non-12-step recovery programs: + SMART Recovery USA/SMART Recovery International + LifeRing, Inc. + Recovery Dharma Global + WOMEN FOR SOBRIETY INC + Moderation Management + The HAMS Harm Reduction Network, Inc + RECOVERY MOVIE MEET-UPs + SHE RECOVERS® Foundation + Life Process Program (paid program) + The Freedom Model (paid program) So appreciative of these organizations' support in making sure I accurately represented the programs in the workbook. This guide is meant for two groups of people: 1) those individuals trying to make changes in their addictive behaviors who want to explore pathways "Beyond the Twelve", and 2) anyone who loves, cares about, or is trying to help those people in group one (especially when the Twelve-Step programs may not be the best fit) The workbook is available now: https://lnkd.in/gphV3fyS Private message me for discounts of copies of 5 or more. Best, ryan
Experience & Education
Licenses & Certifications
Volunteer Experience
Courses
-
IAB Programmatic 360
1
Recommendations received
11 people have recommended Aaron
Join now to viewOther similar profiles
Explore more posts
Explore top content on LinkedIn
Find curated posts and insights for relevant topics all in one place.
View top content