My thoughts on Product Management, Business and Technology... and woodworking
I installed some some floating shelves in our living room. First project of 2020. The hard part is working through the install of the Rockler blind shelf supports. These aren’t the easy thing in the world to install. But the results came out great. Used the router to hollow out the space to fit the hardware. Little wipe on poly for a finish, and done! Built this with a slightly thicker elm wood.
I'm quoted this week in an article in Automotive News regarding mobile paid search ads.
Mobile advertising is an extremely complex area right now. There is more that needs to be learned as Google changes their marketplace. They are making the right moves as a business. Now it is up to us to provide the best value for our customers.
Pricing on mobile is up significantly since the change to Enhanced Campaigns. However, it is still a great value for the local business.
In addition to Mobile Paid Search, I'm really interested in where the mobile display space is going. It is really hard to Mobile Display, for a consumer that is in-market to buy a car, at the local level. Easy if you are doing a one-off buy. Hard to do it for small budgets (sub-$1000) at scale (1000's of advertisers). We will figure this out.
Link to the Automotive News Article (you have to be a subscriber unfortunately).
Sander and I got in a big discussion about Bigfoot. He thinks Bigfoot exists. I don't. We discussed how we could prove that Bigfoot exists. He says we need hundreds of satellites over the forests scanning with a Bigfoot scanner and that would prove there was a Bigfoot. And until we don't that we can't say that Bigfoot doesn't exist. He makes a convincing argument, even for a 6 year old.
Yes, I'm posting another Seth Godin post. But as work has cause blogging to go even further back on the burner, I have run across my fair share of meeting trolls.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/04/a-field-guide-to-the-meeting-troll.html
A field guide to the Meeting Troll
The meeting troll is a common creature, one that morphs over time and is good at hiding (snaring you when it's too late to avoid him.)
- The meeting troll has a neverending list of reasonable objections. It's the length of the list that makes the objections unreasonable.
- The meeting troll never says 'we'. It's all about 'you.'
- The meeting troll doesn't actually want you to fail, but is establishing a trail so that if you do, he's off the hook.
- Despite his protestations about how much he hates meetings, the meeting troll actually thrives on them, because, after all, this is the only place he gets to do his best work. The very best way to extinguish the meeting troll is to extinguish meetings. The second best way is to not invite him.
- A key giveway: The meeting troll will use the phrase, "devil's advocate." More than once.
- Growth hackers look for a yes at every turn. The meeting troll thinks his job is to find the no.
- The meeting troll never eagerly calls a project meeting, nor does he bring refreshments, volunteer to organize follow up or encourage others to push their ideas even further. He's eager, though, to host the post mortem.
- One particularly noxious type of meeting troll says not a thing at the meeting. He uses body language and eye rolling to great advantage, though, and you can be sure that there will be quiet one-on-one undermining going on as soon as the meeting is over. The modern evolution of this is the instant messaging of snide remarks during the meeting.
- The meeting troll has a perfect memory for previous failures and complete amnesia when it comes to things that have worked.
- Analogies, particularly to vivid flameouts (regardless of how rare or irrelevant) is the easy tool for the amateur troll. He's also good at equating your desire to deal with negative change with the assertion that you somehow caused or were in favor of that negative change.
- Open-ended questions that merely hint at failure are sufficient for the experienced troll. He knows that he doesn't have to kill the new project for it to die. He just has to stir up sufficient unease.
- The meeting troll is afraid, not merely evil. Change is a threat, and trolling is his well-intentioned but erroneous response to the threat of change.
Good comments today from Seth Godin on his blog.
It costs time and money to make something better. It's risky, as well, because trying to make something better might make it worse. Perhaps making it better for the masses makes it worse for the people who already like it. And risk brings fear, because that means someone is going to be held responsible, and so the lizard brain wants out.
