Distribution is Life
Why content is just potential energy—and other lessons from the NYC streets.
Journalism is worthless until it is distributed. Zip. Zero. Nada.
We struggle to talk about that. We like to talk about reporting and writing and craft. Distribution doesn’t sound very sexy. But it is everything.
I was thinking about this recently while in Phoenix. I was at Arizona State University for a conference on journalism and AI. Vala Afshar, of Salesforce fame, was a keynote speaker and shared a quote by José Andrés about operations.
“Distribution is life.”
His point was simple. You can make the most delicious meal possible. You can source the highest quality ingredients. You can hire the top culinary talent in the world. But if that food doesn’t leave the kitchen while people are starving five miles away, then none of it matters.
The meal is not the product. Distribution is the product.
When I heard this, I didn’t think about AI. Actually, I thought about the 1980s.
Before I was working on product strategy or thinking about the future of the newsroom, I was racing through the streets of New York.
I was a bike messenger.
My office was the street. My job was simple in theory, chaotic in practice. Take something from Point A to Point B. Something physical.
Most of the time, it wasn’t one document. It was stacks of film cans. I remember stuffing my red messenger bag with as many as I could fit. Then I’d tie more to my back until I resembled a cyclist version of a packmule.
Safety? Balance? The people whose items I was carrying didn’t care about either. If someone tried to steal my load, I’d pedal faster. The only thing that mattered was speed. How quickly can I traverse Manhattan?
Oh, and we did all of this blind.
Cell phones? Ha. We had one-way pagers and wads of quarters. We were given the quarters at the beginning of each shift. They came out of our pay. When your pager beeped, you had to scan the street for an available payphone. Literally. Find the phone. Call your dispatcher. Get coordinates for your next pickup/delivery.
Truthfully, there was no room for failure. It just wasn’t possible.
Here’s the thing. The value of the package was zero until it was delivered.
If the lawyer waited ten minutes for me to arrive, it didn’t matter how fast I rode. As long as the contract wasn’t on the desk for him to review, I wasn’t doing my job. If the editor waited an hour, it didn’t matter how many trips I made. If she didn’t have the film in time to complete for the screening, I failed.
The bike was the vehicle. Delivery was the product.
Today, I feel like we focus way too much time on the kitchen in media and journalism. We care way too much about how the food looks. We stress about how the photo complements the content. We spend hours tweaking headlines and subheads. We write SEO-rich articles so bots will read our content.
We mistake the content for the final product.
Here’s the thing about content. Content is potential energy. Delivery is kinetic energy.
If we want to change the industry, we need to learn from José Andrés. This isn’t just about distribution. It is about how we approach the work.
It starts with treating each deliverable with an “urgency of now.”
Stop planning. Start doing. Back when I was riding, I didn’t have time to stop at the corner and stare at a map for twenty minutes. Once I knew where I was going, I started pedaling. Sure, I made mistakes. But I adjusted once I felt the traffic.
Same thing with product. Too often, we suffer from analysis paralysis. We spend months perfecting features that no one wants. Once we ship something, it’s too late. Context changes. Again, we need urgency. Ship, learn, iterate. Waiting for your team to come up with the perfect plan may leave you too late to launch.
Function like software, not hardware.
Andrés doesn’t approach every disaster with the same solution. The kitchen he builds adapts to each situation’s unique needs. We can’t just ship pallets from Tampa and expect it to work everywhere. Bring flexible systems. Software.
My bike setup was pretty basic. A bike. A bag full of quarters. My software was the infrastructure I built in my head. My memory of how to navigate the city grid. My ability to recalculate a route if I missed a turn.
Newsrooms love hardware. Meetings. Annual plans. Pointless presentations. Fireside chats. We need to be software. Ready to adapt when the platform changes.
That software mindset will allow you to think local.
When Hurricane Michael hit, José didn’t wait for bread delivery from Florida. He taught locals how to bake bread. He didn’t import solutions. He used what was already around him.
Newsrooms can be local solutions too. When I was riding, I was the local solution. Sure, there were UPS and FedEx trucks. But they had set routes. I didn’t. I knew which freight elevators were fastest in each building. I knew which security guards looked the other way. I knew how to cut through hectic streets.
It’s time we embrace that mentality again. Let’s start thinking local. Let’s be the best at something for someone. Instead of chasing blanket algorithms that try to appeal to everyone, tailor your content to your community. Be the local expert.
But most importantly, remember dignity.
Providing efficiency for World Central Kitchen is about dignity. Providing great UX is dignity for us.
Nobody likes waiting for a slow site. Nobody likes cluttered newsletters. We need to respect the user’s time and attention. Sending pop-ups and ads all over their screen is disrespectful. You are telling your user that you care more about your advertising dollars than you do them.
“Distribution is life” is more than a catchphrase. If you want your content to save lives, remember that.
So I have to ask. Look at the last big project you shipped. Be honest. What was the split? Did you spend 90% of your energy in the kitchen perfecting the garnish? Or did you save enough energy for the ride? Tell me in the comments: what is one thing you are going to do differently this week to improve your delivery?
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This bike messenger comparison really nails the urgency issue in modern content. The point about FedEx having set routes versus your adaptive navigation is exactly what traditional media keeps missing, they optimize for predictable schedules instead of adapting to where audience attention actaully is. I worked in digital product and saw teams spend 80% of effort perfecting features nobody asked for while neglecting the last-mile experience that determins whether users even stick around.