May 20, 2016 · 8:49 am

Bringing The Heat

This Foodie Friday, let’s bring the heat.  Specifically, let’s talk about hot peppers.  Many people, myself included, enjoy spicy food.  The problem with cooking food that brings the heat is that what’s hot to me might not be hot enough for you.  Now that I think of it, the opposite is nearly always true – if I’m happy with the heat in a dish, chances are most of the folks for whom I’m cooking are going to find it hard to eat and enjoy.

This image shows a Habanero chile, which is th...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This article from First We Feast summarized it nicely:

A 2013Technomic study showed that 54% of Americans prefer spicy sauces and dips—a number that was and likely still is increasing rapidly. Unlike so many other taste preferences, though, the growth of spice brings with it a prickly issue: How much heat can your tongue handle?

As it turns out research shows that tolerance to hot food is both genetic and a learned habit – you can train yourself to eat hotter food if you’re willing to go through the pain of doing so, and some folks have a head start based on genetics.  “Hot” or “Spicy” is really a subjective term even though a measurement standard exists that make it really easy to tell how much heat is in a dish. Scientists can measure Scoville units to determine how the capsaicin in a pepper or a dish registers as heat.  It’s an objective standard.  Which brings us to the business point today.

Too many of us rely on gut feel – how we perceive things to be – rather than an objective standard.  What seems fine to us might be intolerable to our customers. There is little in business that we can or should do without measuring, even if we can’t test in advance.  That’s not to say that we never should put things out there based on our own tastes, but we need to listen carefully to feedback and be prepared to adjust the seasoning.  It’s fine to bring the heat in any product or business, but let’s remember that some folks can’t stand any heat and will go running from our kitchens if we’re not paying attention.

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May 19, 2016 · 10:51 am

Publisher : Cavete

Sometimes I look at what’s going on in publishing as if someone was whispering the Springsteen lyric in management’s ear:

Those romantic young boys, they’re callin’ through the window
Hey, Spanish Johnny, you want to make a little easy money tonight?

The easy money comes from native advertising, particularly the kind that’s plug and play. Just as in the song, however, there isn’t any easy money that comes without strings attached and some research from Penn State found out just what those strings entail.

The research team found that when content was identified as native advertising, readers held a lower opinion of the media outlet it was published in. However, the reputation of the company being promoted was not affected…“We all have the idea that the news media should be objective and neutral…that’s how it works,” Wu said. “But people may see the media and companies working together to deceive us…so they change their perception toward the media more dramatically. On the other hand, people see that the company is just doing what it’s supposed to, promoting itself.”

The speaker in the quote above is the PhD student who conducted the study. While I certainly understand the importance of revenue generation in an increasingly competitive and difficult marketplace, I also understand the value of a publisher’s reputation. That reputation, like all of ours, takes a long time to establish but can be shattered rather quickly. The loss of trust is fatal for any brand and particularly so for an information service.

Maybe it’s called “native content” or maybe it’s actually identified as “sponsored content” or a “promoted post.”  Either way, it’s generally not immediately identifiable as being from a source different from the main news or information the publisher puts out.  I think most of us dislike being enticed to read something under false pretenses, and part of the decision to invest time in reading involves the quality of the content which is predicated on the source.  When we’re deceived, we’re unhappy, and when we’re unhappy, we don’t return.

Publishers need to beware.  There is no easy money to be made unless you’re in it for the short term and are reputation-agnostic.  Are you?

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May 18, 2016 · 11:38 am

Crappy jobs

One summer when I was in college I found myself without gainful employment. I had spent many other summers as a camp counselor but I had decided not to spend 8 weeks locked in a bunk with a slew of six-year-olds and hadn’t really found anything to do that didn’t require an investment of cash (like an ice cream truck route). All the “good” jobs were taken, and while a buddy and I were offering our services out to paint houses, I really needed to do something to generate cash. That’s how I ended up with a crappy job for which I am still thankful.

My crappy job involved going door to door selling encyclopedias. I’m not kidding. For the younger readers out there, printed encyclopedias were pretty popular (think analog Wikipedia) nearly half a century ago. Every day I would drive my car into some neighborhood and walk the streets knocking on doors. The case I carried was not light, even to my younger, in-shape self. I got rejected nearly every time, at least when someone was nice enough to actually open the door, hear my spiel, and not threaten me with a dog. I also made a few bucks in the process, but calling it a crappy job is an understatement.

I learned a tremendous amount from my crappy job. First and foremost, I learned patience and what is commonly called sticktoitiveness.  I didn’t quit; well, at least not until my painting partner convinced someone to let us paint their house, which was 8 weeks into the summer.  I learned cold-calling and how to qualify leads.  I learned not to fear speaking to strangers. I learned that, just as is baseball, it’s possible to fail 6 times out of 10 and still be an all-star. Most importantly, I gained perspective.  Nearly any other job seemed great by comparison, and I could mentally return to knocking on doors any time things got bad at some subsequent job.

Many years later, “tell me about the worst job you ever had” became one of my standard interview questions.  I looked for people who had a crappy job at some point and we always talked about why it sucked and what they learned. I always leaned toward candidates who had done the worst jobs.

What crappy job have you had? How did it change you?

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