November 7, 2014 · 1:13 pm

Pumpkin Eggnog

Foodie Friday and suddenly, it’s late Fall. The leaves are mostly down, the weather seems worse (and a lot colder), and a trip to the supermarket reminds us that the holidays are nigh. One of the most in your face manifestations of this is the sudden, overwhelming appearance of eggnog. Taking it “one louder” is something out of a horror movie called Pumpkin Eggnog, which I suppose is a reason to put what is a traditional Christmas drink out on the shelves at Halloween.

This got me thinking about seasonal spices and flavors.  If you were to shut your eyes and think about the flavors of this time of year it’s all ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice with a handful of poultry seasoning thrown in.  Peppermint rears its head in December.  Those are not seasonings you’d think of for a Fourth Of July party.  Which is a good business thought on which to end the week.

Tastes change.  Consumer’s appetites for certain products is not a constant.  Something as simple as the weather or time of year can have a dramatic effect on sales.  Not much news there.  What is worth thinking about, however, is because those ebbs and flows take place over time it’s critical to compile years of data and look at the year over year pacing.  Yes, eggnog sales fall off when Spring rolls around.  But is the fall off any different from how it was the year prior or are we taking the easy path of saying”oh, it’s just a seasonal change.”  That can mask danger signs.

I won’t be drinking any pumpkin eggnog.  I will, however, be doing a lot of data analysis over the next couple of months as my clients and their businesses change seasons.  I think I’ll enjoy that more than a mug full of pumpkins and eggs.

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November 6, 2014 · 12:04 pm

Inbox

I got an invitation to use Google’s new email app, Inbox, yesterday. I installed it on my phone and that allows you to use it with a web browser as well. My first impressions are all positive. It’s a very intuitive interface and is much more visually appealing (and friendly) that the standard Gmail interface.  I’m not sure if any of you have got it yet (it’s still invite only) but I’d love to hear your thoughts and/or tips if you have.  You can email inbox@google.com to request one.

One thing I noticed pretty quickly is how much easier it is to deal with older mail. You can label mails as lower priority, snooze them (they go away from your mailbox for a bit), make them add themselves to “bundles” and other nice features.  This article from Lifehacker does a decent job explaining it.

Naturally, I had a broader business thought as I was using it.  The activities – reading and responding to email – were things most of us do every day (all day in some of our cases!).  But because I was approaching the activities in a new way and was looking at the information in a new way, I was suddenly getting more done.  My inbox is cleaned up and there is a system in place to ping me with reminders.  The information I use daily is better organized and much more findable.  That, to me, seems to be an approach we can all try out in many of our other business activities.  Look at the same old things in a different way with a different approach and maybe, just maybe, we become more productive.

What do you think?

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November 5, 2014 · 12:13 pm

Owning It

There was a report issued by Piper Jaffray which is the latest iteration of an on-going study on teens.

Piper Jaffray

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In it was a nugget about how teens are (or aren’t) using Facebook.  As reported in The Washington Post:

Between fall 2014 and spring 2014, when Piper Jaffray last conducted this survey, Facebook use among teenagers aged 13 to 19 plummeted from 72 percent to 45 percent. In other words, less than half of the teenagers surveyed said “yes” when asked if they use Facebook.

For those of us who work in other businesses, this issue isn’t really so much about where teens are spending their time.  The problem isn’t confined to Facebook either.  Facebook, like Google, Reddit, and many other social/news sites, don’t generate the bulk of the content that populate their sites.  Users do, so when a chunk of the user base vanishes so too does the content that chunk generates.  Could the site replace it?  Maybe, but it wouldn’t be in an authentic voice nor reflect the topics that are on the mind of the intended audience.

I’m always wary about a business that is so dependent upon that model.  Traditional media creates (or buys) content itself.  There is a different issue there (is anyone paying attention to what they’re producing) but the base product is unaffected regardless of usage.  One can argue that Facebook is just a tech platform but if their business model is selling ads (and it is) then they are a media company.  Google produces none of the content is serves.  Search results are just reflective of what’s out there.  If the content becomes unavailable, either through “no index” tags or otherwise, what does that do to the quality of the search results?  How is usage affected?

Sound businesses are built with as few “uncontrollable” elements as possible.  If your model is built on the output of others and those sources dry up, does your business do so as well?  I say we need to own the product stream as much as possible.  What say you?

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