Category Archives: ramblings

daily life, thoughts, and ramblings

I now give you permission to fail better

Practice is the main determinant of success in a particular field. [ via Scott Adams - The Illusion of Winning ] Most people I’ve read or listened to recently discussing game mechanics focus on the value of incremental rewards, but I actually believe the correlation between the value of gaming and being “good at life” [...]
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I am getting sick of going viral

Think about the fact that with this change, there is no reason you couldn’t promote content, videos and contests to LinkedIn’s audience even if you have a relatively small number of  followers. Going viral on LinkedIn may provide more long-term business benefit than the short-term page view lifts we see with other channels. [ via [...]
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lean isn’t just for startups

You probably already know that I am a huge proponent of lean startup and customer development theory and tactics. One of the main reasons I hung up my consultant hat and took this job at Zappos, was to explore practicing customer development in a big company. We still act like a startup sometimes, but after [...]
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Values vs Projected Values

thinking about core values on 12seconds.tv Reading through an interesting conversation where people are talking about discovering their core values. The answers they are coming up with are all very grand and noble. Which has me thinking two things: We all want to be part of something much bigger than ourselves. We have a much [...]
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The question is, are you trying to reach your goals in your business with bricklayers or cathedral builders?

What? Tweet
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why would a company hire people they don’t trust?

I am fortunate enough to work for a company that has a great culture. But, plenty of my friends and colleagues battle the long slow death of a painful relationship with their workplace. The longer I’ve been at Zappos, the more unbelievable their stories have become. Meanwhile, more and more research is released every day [...]
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customers don’t go to your site for the features, they go for the content

I really enjoyed Karen McGrane‘s talk (embedded below). Some of my favorites: “People don’t go to your site to look at your templates. They go for the content.” “Emphasize the real goal: not new navigation buckets, but better information for site visitors.” “Our new web strategy said, ‘Organize the site around user needs rather than [...]
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5 Secrets of Highly Effective Twitter Users

There’s no way to guarantee success with a Twitter campaign, but you can stack the odds in your favor by following some simple tips to vastly increase your effectiveness. Here’s how to get the most bang for your tweet… [ via 5 Secrets of Highly Effective Twitter Users ] You can go read their suggestions. [...]
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What would it look like to graph your attention?

Chris has got me pondering what an attention graph would look like, after reading his thoughts about Internet, Social, Interest, Taste, Financial Trust, Local, and Endorsement graphs. Maybe, in an attention graph, the nodes are attention sources, and relations are time? But then, the relations would have to be measured in a zero-sum game? I’m [...]
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Start

photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/ansik/ / CC BY 2.0 If I had to concentrate the startup advice I’ve absorbed over the past 2 years, I could limit the list to: Scratch a really painful itch Tell everyone your idea Find the right team Ask more questions I’m gonna let that marinate * for a bit, and then [...]
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  • (hacking around w/facebook)