Tag Archives: life lessons

September 25, 2019 · 2:54 pm

Changes In Latitude

I did something today that I consider a bit of a milestone and I’d like to share it with you because it brings up a bigger point. One of the areas that I used to help clients with was Search Engine Optimization (SEO). While I never claimed to be an expert on the subject I knew enough to get clients started in improving their rankings, often to great effect. In order to stay current, I had 10 different feeds from blogs relating to SEO funneling into my feed reader. Each day I’d peruse the latest and great information, trying to stay current so my advice would be solid.

I also had half a dozen feeds from the advertising trades and six others that talked about analytics. Reading them throughout each day, along with the feeds on the sports business and many tech feeds, probably took a total of an hour or two each day, and when there were big developments, often longer.

I got that time back today because I deleted those feeds from my news stream. I’ve changed the focus of my business to franchise consulting and frankly, keeping current on tech, advertising, and media when I have very little practical reason to do so (other than to amuse you here on the screed) was an inefficient use of my time. While I am still subscribed to a number of feeds in those areas to maintain a knowledge base, I’m cutting the cord on most of them.

What’s been surprising as I hit the “delete” key is how long it has taken me to do this and that’s the point I think is relevant to each of us. It’s hard to let go. I still consider myself a TV guy even though I haven’t worked in the TV business for almost 20 years. Most of the people with whom I worked are on to other things or retired. I couldn’t let go though and was faithfully reading the trades I read when it was my daily life.

I’ve been at this new line of consulting for a year. I’m thoroughly enjoying it and business is good. Despite that, it’s a struggle not to look in the reaview mirror sometimes at the business life that was yesterday instead of spending that time focusing on what’s ahead. I’m hoping that deleting the feeds and freeing up some time will encourage me looking forward and I hope it’s something you’ll think about as well. As Jimmy Buffett says,

Its these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes
Nothing remains quite the same

Make sense?

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Filed under Growing up, Helpful Hints, Reality checks, Thinking Aloud

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September 18, 2019 · 10:06 am

Living For The Likes

I’ve been meaning to mention the thing that Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are all either testing or have deployed outside of the USA: killing the like count. They’re not eliminating the positive feedback (or any other kind) that people reading your content provide. What they’re doing is deemphasizing it by not showing total like counts. I, for one, am a fan and I’ll tell you why.

Actually, I won’t tell you. I’ll instead quote a Wired piece on the subject of living for the like and tailoring your message and tactic accordingly:

These tactics are attracting increased scrutiny, about their impact on the health of the internet and on society at large. Publicly measurable indicators—including views, retweets, or likes—are “one of the driving forces in radicalization,” says Whitney Phillips, a media manipulation researcher and associate professor at Syracuse University. It works both ways, she says. A user can be radicalized by consuming content and a creator can be radicalized by users’ reactions to their content, as they tailor their behavior around what garners the most interest from their audience.

Unfortunately for marketers, it also eliminates a metric that many marketers use to guide both their spending and their own content. While a minor disturbance in the marketing Force, they’ll get over it and move on to something else. My hope is that it destroys the “influencer” world. I’ve never been a fan and if this hastens its demise, I’m all for it. These are vanity metrics and not real measures of engagement which can be tracked in other ways. It’s also the final solution to those scam artists that sell fake “likes”.

The real issue for me is that many people – especially young ones – seem to develop feelings of inadequacy if they can’t generate sufficient “likes.” Maybe it even deters them from sharing anything in the first place and withdrawing.  For those of us that were there when all of this social stuff began, it’s been hard to watch it go from a great way to stay in touch with your friends and family to a weaponized space where trolls proliferate and it’s often hard to tell what’s real and what’s not.

I’m sure there are some selfish business reasons behind these moves while remaining hopeful that it’s really the start of the social media company’s coming to grips with all of the downsides of their worlds. When you like these screeds, do I see the counts? Sure. Do I change what I have written? In broad strokes, yes, but not based on the likes as much as on the overall readership and responses. In the 11 years I’ve been writing the screed, things such as a regular post on music (TunesDay!) and blogs about research (only rarely now) have gone because you don’t read them. Would I still write on those topics if I thought I could produce something that would interest you? Of course, likes be damned.

Live for today, not for the like.  You with me?

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Filed under digital media, Huh?

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September 13, 2019 · 4:00 pm

Unlucky Food

Happy Foodie Friday to all you triskaidekaphobics out there! That’s right – it’s Friday the 13th and those with a fear of the number 13 apparently aren’t the only ones with some fears this day. As it turns out, there is a whole host of fears about food, most of which I knew nothing about until I consulted the Googles. For example, did you know that chicken wings are unlucky to have on New Year’s Eve? It is because wings are believed to make your luck fly away from you and who wants that when you’re just starting a new year?

Who knew that some people consider lobster an unlucky food? I always considered myself pretty lucky when I could afford to get one at a restaurant, but some folks think that because lobsters can swim backward, they too are avoided on the New Year’s menu. The thinking is that swimming backward means you have messed it all up and you need to start over in life.

Cutting bananas, not crushing eggshells, and how you place your chopsticks are all involved in food-related bad luck beliefs. As it turns out, there are some things that we can take away from misplaced beliefs. Many businesses have had their products also suffer from beliefs based on rumors and not on facts. I think you’ve probably heard the one that KFC had to change their name from Kentucky Fried Chicken because what they began serving was not actually chicken. Like an email that circulated when this was a hot rumor said:

KFC does not use real chickens. They actually use genetically manipulated organisms. These so-called ‘chickens’ are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet.

Oy. For you Coca-Cola enthusiasts, you’ll be pleased to know that Coke does not contain a bug-based dye nor has anyone ever died from drinking it while eating Mentos, both “facts” that circulated years back.  Neither P&G nor Starbucks are devil worshippers which some folks state as fact based on their logos. Bubble Yum doesn’t contain spider eggs.

You can laugh, but every one of those companies and dozens more has had to spend resources fighting “facts”, most of which wouldn’t have ever seen the light of day in the pre-Internet times.  As a business, it reminds us that monitoring social media is critical to stop things such as these from ever spreading. It also reminds us as citizens that training ourselves (and our kids!) to exercise critical thinking and pursue facts based in truth and not in rumor is paramount.

Friday the 13th? A full moon as well? Shouldn’t it really be Halloween?

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Filed under food, Helpful Hints, Reality checks

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