The HBR gives an interesting look into the changing landscape of pro-customer successeting (my own term coined as marketing, customer service, and product management slowly morph into an amorphous blob of goo before our very eyes). It gives fascinating insight into how successful companies are putting value, and therefore money, into the customer journey. As a customer success professional, I can’t help but admire the scale and finesse achieved by Sungevity (a solar panel retailer) as describe…
Lest I mislead you with this title, I’m focused mostly on personal sites here. I don’t care much for the trends of bigger publications; those with their overlaid ads or “enjoy 1 of 5 free articles” banners. But the trend I’m referring to for smaller, more personal and less corporate sites is a move away from the structure of the traditional blog towards a larger focus. In talking about relevancy vs. recency [http://shawnblanc.net/2015/11/relevancy-vs-recency/], my pal Shawn Blanc discussed his…
Cal Newport advocates for a text file to “to augment your limited neuronal capacity with some digital help…” Sounds familiar. Back in the day, productivity “experts” such as Patrick Rhone and myself were advocating the use of a personal log file [https://chrisbowler.com/journal/track-yourself-with-a-custom-log-file] (plain text, natch). I’m enjoying Cal’s site (hat tip to Shawn Blanc). And while I’m not interested in returning to the ways of a navel gazing, card carrying GTDer, I appreciate Ca…
With Medium's new publishing API, is the focus shifted from a writing tool to a sharing tool? Is it now less about writing and more about networking?
Nerds everywhere have been gushing about Episode 7 since the first teaser was made available. With the release of the official trailer this week, the excitement builds to a pitch and the countdown to Dec. 18th is on. This guy? I’m tempering my enthusiasm. First, Hollywood has gotten very good at churning out trailers that are fun and exciting and full of promise, but end with movies that are all style and no substance. There are plenty [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6DJcgm3wNY] of examples…
Susan Robertson makes the case for writing as a way to improve your thoughts. When you have an opinion, attempting to share that opinion with others in written form causes you to go through an important process. As she describes it: > When I went to write up a rough post for the company blog about how I created the style guide we were using, it pushed me to think about how I define these tools. That rough post never ended up on the company blog, but it did get published as an A List Apart arti…
Patrick Rhone received an incredible gift for Christmas this past year. A friend gave him the opportunity to take a personal retreat. All he had to do was pick the time and place and everything was taken care of. And although the act of getting away from everyone, everything, and most importantly, everything online are great on their own, his retreat came with a single room cabin, the wilderness, fresh baked bread, and artisanal cheese. That is some friend! Patrick shared a few of the entries…
Allison Wagner touches on an aspect of our industry that is problematic. She gives it a clever title: the two year itch: > Some people seek professional growth where the grass appears greener and the chairs more ergonomic. Just a generation ago, many of our parents worked for the same organization for their entire working life. My dad worked for himself for many years, but he eventually sold his business and started working for another company. And he's still there. How many people under 40 do…