You See This 12 Times/Day

We all do it. We read a blog post - get very conceptual and strategic - and fire off a well-intentioned email to our team trying to provoke some thought by asking very high-level (sometimes rhetorical) questions.

The next time someone asks you a question like this in an email chain - answer it. And “reply all”. That’ll move things forward… *quickly*.

[Cheers to David Gutierrez for taking the photo above.]

tags: change, tomorrow
posted in Everything Else by Andrew | 3 Comments

My Favourite ‘Pay It Backward’ Moment

At one point during yesterday’s world record breaking event, a father pulled his cell phone away from his ear and excused himself to one of the Pay It Backward volunteers,

Sorry about that. My 3 year old son is on the phone and he’s excited that he can see me on the internet.

This, for me, summed up the day. The desire to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. The idea that we could each play a contributing role in something as big as etching Toronto into history for the most consecutive good deeds. The notion that, through one simple action, we could write a memory for our children, our neighbour, and the stranger behind us in line.

As someone who rarely stops to appreciate the moment he’s in (a fault to be sure), this tiny event of a father and son, got to me. Here was someone who began his day as he would most any other. In a moment of understanding, he decides to stop what he’s doing to do something he hadn’t planned. He understood.

A simple act of sharing. And now a story that will be re-told for the 87 years still to come in his son’s life.

tags: events, moments, people, pibTO, stories
posted in Everything Else by Andrew | 8 Comments

Stories

A great quote from Dan Pink’s book ‘A Whole New Mind‘…

If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.

-Barry Lopez, author of ‘Arctic Dreams‘

tags: books, quotes, stories
posted in Everything Else by Andrew | 1 Comment

Locking Your User Experience

Don’t make me think about it. That should be your approach if you’re just starting out.

I ran into a very useful web app today and wanted to get started. It’s a web app in a world of web apps - getting started in 30 seconds can safely be assumed. I wasn’t even going to check the pricing, but since it was a primary tab in the menu, I glanced. Then I left.

I’ll come back again, especially since I might have use for the service. But for now, I’m gone. Too many features scattered across too many pricing tiers.

The last ten percent…

There is nothing wrong with pricing tiers. We upgrade our iPods based on a need for more space or less size (2 moving variables). Your features make your user experience. If you bury them in 3 of your 5 service levels, then 40% of your users will never get your experience.

tags: apps, design, pricing, SaaS, user experience
posted in Everything Else by Andrew | No Comments

Oh My

It seems that something about me peaked your curiousity. Well you should know that I’m terribly sorry that I didn’t have my dancing shoes laced up in time.

I’m actually in the midst of an identity switch. You can bookmark this link if you like - it won’t change. That being said, the name of this little piece of web property will be a little different a few days from now. I’ve boxed up my old posts and we’re moving to a little town called microchasm.com (ideasforconversations.com will lead you there too, so please - don’t waste your memory chips).

Thanks for taking the time to check in. Once again - I’m sorry I wasn’t dressed. What else is new.

tags: branding, identity
posted in Everything Else by Andrew | No Comments

There’s Something Unsettling…

… about Google telling me that I’m using 17% of my email space. I can’t ever imagine running out or having to pay. Plus I’m so conditioned to “never delete” as they’ve preached for years.

It makes me feel eery… like monetization looms.

tags: expectations, google, monetization, switching costs
posted in Everything Else by Andrew | No Comments

Microchasms & The Iterant Business

A long time ago, there was a prevailing school of thought that said once you had built your business to operate a certain way, turning it on it’s head would not only be a risk, but a risk that was largely unnecessary.

A business takes a long time to build. You add people, infrastructure, process, key partners - and along the way, everything takes a bit longer and costs a bit more. To do an about face would be silly. The safer play was to analyze, optimize and more towards being a market leader in efficiencies and economies of scale.

Cue the digital revolution.

All of a sudden, change was not only constant, but rampant and exponential. Agility became a business model. Flexibility, movable parts and transferable skills started getting radio play in different contexts. The key finding however, was that they were all part of the bigger strategic shift - The Iterant Business.

A microchasm is a tiny step recurring at a higher-than-you’re-used-to frequency.

Overhauling a business or it’s underlying assumptions, does not require a full stop and subsequent 5 year plan. Overhauling Navigating a business in a digital climate, simply requires turning the wheel one degree at a time in order reach a destination while sitting atop an unstable surface (oceans equal industry in this little vignette).

Each degree is a microchasm. What makes it a chasm is the fact that it’s 99% forgetting what you know.

Going forward, I will be writing about microchasms. Baby steps. Tactics. Thinking in reverse. Those who will get the most from this blog will be those whose assumptions were made tentatively in times of ‘all else being equal’, and who now understand that ‘all else will never be equal’.

tags: agile, change, chasm, digital, risk
posted in Everything Else by Andrew | No Comments

Title Smack

It used to suck to say you were in sales… hence the words ‘business development’.

Then I read this from Chris Brogan,

What does a day in the life of a social media marketer look like? I’m not a marketer, so if I get some of your terms wrong, forgive me.

And I can’t help but think how much is sucks to say you’re a marketer.

I guess we’re all Strategists and Product people. They used to call them ‘Consultants’ and ‘Engineers’.

tags: change, observations, people
posted in Everything Else by Andrew | 1 Comment

Curiousity Killed the SysAdmin Cat

This morning I turned on my computer to find 3 MSN messages that were quite obviously spam. The messages had the traditional caption+link setup:

Find out who has blocked you.
www.BlockInfo.com

I guess we know what people couldn’t resist.

tags: observations, people, predictable
posted in Everything Else by Andrew | No Comments

Memory & Roadmaps

If your brand relies on me seeing a URL on t.v. and remembering to type it into my browser…

If your brand relies on a driver seeing your billboard and making the decision to buy *more* than 10 minutes later…

If your brand relies on me knowing that you’ve stripped your commercial off YouTube in favour of hosting it in the depths of your website…

Then you are fighting an uphill battle.

All we know are roadmaps. If you’re not on the road - we don’t know what you’re driving at. Unless, of course, you’re willing to pave an entirely new road yourself… but we both know that’s not your core business.

tags: branding, change, digital, fail, risk
posted in Everything Else by Andrew | No Comments

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