Strategy is deciding what not to do

Strategy is deciding what not to do.

It sounds so simple.

Which is exactly why it's so hard.

We all fall victim to the next shiny thing fluttering across our screen (or inbox).

Yet life reminds us again and again that instant gratification only exists for girls on Instagram - and that hard work, consistently, over time, is the only way to achieve success.

All good things take time, but our time as marketer's is extremely limited (almost as limited as our prospects attention spans).

Because we are limited by time and budget we have to make the hard choice about what our brands will choose to engage in.

By the way, this post is not for the CMO of fortune 100. This post is for you. The marketer who is actually planning and just barely executing on the strategy (because of the aforementioned limitations).

I'm running into this issue at my own job.

It's a large, mature, B2B enterprise tech company and our intern keeps telling us to try snapchat.

Cool idea...but...maybe not for B2B enterprise tech.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong?

And that's the paradox of content strategy that we as marketer's have to navigate.

You can always find a way to make an argument in favor of or against using a new channel (or tweaking your strategy).

What I've realized over the last 9 months is that there are no silver bullets. No overarching objective marketing answers.

No shortcuts.

You have to dig in, set up shop, get to know your customers, your team, the market, and FIO (figure it out).

Use data when you can, your gut when you have to, runs tests like a scientists (because you are), and when things seem like they're crashing down around you, trust in validated learning.

Buffer ruined my Twitter account

I've been hard at work this past quarter putting my nose to the grind stone, cranking out new content, and learning a completely new framework and methodology for discovering commercial insights.

For those who haven't read the Challenge Customer (it really is a must read) commercial insights are basically the way you've determined (through tons of research and validated learning) to message your products or services. This post is not about commercial insights - so click the link above if you're looking to dive deeper. Everyone else, continue on with me to hear about how Buffer ruined Twitter for me. 

So how did Buffer ruin Twitter for Daniel Taibleson? 

Let me take you back...

It was October 6th, 2016 when I published my most popular post on this blog titled High level Content Strategy. This was before I started working at Vertafore and I figured I better start proving to the world that I'm capable of teaching others about content marketing and content strategy. So, like any good writer, I decided to start writing about what I know and sharing it with the world.

No more than a week later while on Vacation in San Diego with some good friends I got the call from Vertafore and accepted a position with them as their new Content Marketing Manager. 

All was well in the world, I was in sunny San Diego while it was raining in Seattle, I had a new job to look forward to, and 2 weeks off to wrap up loose ends before getting back into the rhythm and routine of work life. 

All of a sudden I started to get notification on Twitter that people were tweeting my article.

Holy crow! This is awesome! What I had to say with people was actually resonating! 

Some of you who are cool kids on Twitter might already know this but when you get over 20 notifications it just shows 20 on your mobile device. 

3 weeks later and I was still getting 20+ notifications a day about my article. 

Even weirder - all of the tweets said exactly the same thing:

Understanding Content Strategy via @dantaibleson http://buff.ly/29gFglF  #contentmarketing #Advertising #Perspective

It's July and I'm still getting the notifications.

All the same tweets. 

So what's happened? Basically, buffer picked up on my article and has started suggesting it to people to tweet out (They even suggested a new title LOL - thanks for the hint guys). Which is fine, I get the promo - but it's not necessarily ginune engagement because these people aren't finding it themselves and they're definitely not reading the content before they share it. 

How do I know? 

I use buffer. 

And although I don't mind it - they do seem to be translating into real page views - and sometimes real interaction between the followers of people who tweet this out. The honest reality is that I'm never excited to log into Twitter anymore. Instead of anticipating what cool new connections I've made or what interesting people are reaching out to me to talk about the things I'm passionate about - I know it's just another automated, scheduled tweet from someone who uses buffer to boost their social media presence. 

Sorry Twitter, but I'm not sure how you're going to survive. I like what you're doing with real-time events, but I'm not sure you can beat Facebook or YouTube at that game (YouTube already streaming my favorite live festivals with real time commenting capabilities). I think it will boost your stock price for the next year and a half before we see a dramatic decline or acquisition. I don't wish a decline on anyone - but I can't see how they will compete with snapchat when it comes to Gen Z and even later generations. If you have any thought's feel free to chime in :) 

The key difference between thought leadership and commercial insight

Marketer's are a passionate group of people who love what they do and at a very basic level, love learning. If we didn't, we wouldn't have become marketers. When I talk to students about what they want to do post-graduation and they're in marketing/communications programs, they usually have no idea what roles exist. If they DO have some idea of what roles exist within a corporate communications department, or the media arm of an ad agency, they rarely have any idea what the people in those roles actually DO on a day-to-day basis. 

So I ask them this: 

How do you like to spend your time? 

Do you like to read and write? Or do you enjoy talking on the phone? Attending events? 

Or does spending time in an excel spreadsheet give you energy?

Don't laugh, some people actually enjoy spending all day in spreadsheets! (They might just be one of the greatest inventions of all time: cell-ception. A cell within a cell, containing infinite cells of with which to input data). Mind boggling I know. 

I enjoy discovering what makes people tick (doing the research, talking with customers, discovering insights) and then crafting the perfect message; writing a story so good and so undeniably RIGHT for who that person is and what they need, that they feel it was written directly for them. 

The sale is closure. The sale is validation. Approval. It's all of those things. But the journey is what's really addicting. It's one of those stories that evolves over time, connecting the dots one-by-one, unable to see the entire picture except for brilliant flashes and glimpses of what it might be. Until finally it's over and done, hung on the wall. Time for the next puzzle. 

Tomorrow is an exciting day for me. 

Vertafore is working with CEB and we've brought in a team to do a full 2-day training session in order to learn how to discover commercial insights. 

Going to college was one thing, but this is training and education I could neither afford or discover on my own. I'm thrilled at the opportunity to have some more formal training around the art and science of marketing. And as always, I'll report back here on my experience. 

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a hot topic in the tech community right now, which is almost counter intuitive...because we see all of these prominent tech figures talking about how important it is to take a time out from our gadgets and social networks to reconnect with ourselves and the world around us.

I'm breathing in.

I'm breathing out.

Sorry about that, I was just taking a quick breathing break to remind myself of where I am and what I'm doing, so that I can truly appreciate life and the fact that I'm living and embrace this moment.

Because every moment on this earth is a fantastical blessing and miracle in it's own right.

There is NO doubt in my mind that technology is evil.

There is also no doubt in my mind that it's our savior.

Technology is 100% integrated into our evolution and from this point in time forward will play a role in shaping human existence. I am a full believer that our destiny's are intertwined.

Part of me feels hopeless about it. I look around and see people so consumed with their gadgets that I DO believe people will say yes to implants. Honestly I don't know if I'd say no to an affordable connected device embedded seamlessly (and painlessly) under the first few layers of my skin. It's an absurd concept, but one day it WILL be available.

The few things I do know are:

1) My son likes playing with rocks and dirt and puddles
2) But when you put him in front of screen, he's powerless to it
3) When I spend more time on social media, I get instant gratification, but feel more scattered, and less confident about where I'm at in life in the long run.
4) Our education system is NOT doing a good enough job at teaching kids about mindfulness
5) Humans are forgetting how we got here in the first place

If you're looking for a good place to start, try this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Miracle-Mindfulness-Introduction-Meditation/dp/0807012394

Good Riddance Twitter Share Count

Content Marketers!

Take some time out of your day to pour a 40oz out for Twitter's share count. You've probably heard about it by now, or noticed it, but if you're pissed off or sad about it? It's time to turn that frown upside down.

Not only because you can get it back, if you want...http://opensharecount.com/

But a new day has dawned where the phonies are going to realize that they've been measuring the wrong thing all along.

Share count doesn't matter.

And I'll be honest it pains me to say it, because it was so pretty having all of those high numbers next to my tweet buttons...

But the internet has spoken, and the reality is this:

The only thing that actually matters is referral traffic from social.

Read this amazing blog post that explains everything and then think about it for a while, come back, and continue reading my post as I describe my personal expereince with share counts that turned me away from the darkness and delivered me to the light:

Forget your Twitter share count. Social referral traffic is more important.

Okay, done with that post? 

Here's my story: 

All you have to do is scroll down a few posts on the homepage of this blog and you'll see a post titled 

High level Content Strategy 

Now this post got picked up by buffer and was shared 40 times (linked to twitter search). How do I know it was all from buffer? Because they changed the title to "Understanding content strategy"and everyone that tweeted it had a buffer link. But none of them read the post! Maybe a few...but there isn't one comment on the post or one new email subscriber. It has more pageviews that normal that's for sure, but in terms of real engagement? Or accomplishing my goal of driving email subscribers...nada...

So think twice about what you measure and why it's important. Refer back to the article above about referral traffic for some real tips. 

Unicop

What if I told you, everything you thought you knew about unicorns...was a lie...

image source: https://dribbble.com/shots/1930486-Unicop

Who is the most searched for Democratic candidate?

This is live, and will keep updating, thanks to Google's awesomeness... I was pretty amazing to see this...seems like there is a reality to the idea that Bernie's message is resonating with people...Now we'll just have to see if these same tech-savvy searches are actually voters. I really have no idea who I'm going to vote for. But I do that voting is an extremely important thing that each of us needs to do. If you think about it, it's pretty much you're only chance to have a say. Once someones elected and voted into office, the wheels are in motion and we as the public don't have the level of control or voice that Democracy once allowed for. It's a privilege. It's your right. If you do not vote, do not ever talk to me about politics. It's my litmus test for if you are even allowed to enter my mental space (it's my world, you're just living in it), and if you don't vote, you aren't allowed to say shit. You gave that privilege up the day you decided not to vote. Not to have a say.

MagicPlaylist

As you probably know, I'm a Product hunt Addict. I use the Panda 4 Chrome extension to get my daily dose of new products (mostly software) and every now and then I stumble on something that I can't help but share.

Today's gold mine find is for everyone out there that uses spotify.

You might think I'd be willing to pay for spotify seeing as I'm a music blogger over on Onlythebeat.com. Unfortunately, it's a touchy subject for me and I've refused to become a spotify user because I want to build my own streaming service and I don't want to give them the satisfaction of having me as a user.

But as they continue to roll out new product features I'm having a hard time resisting.

Don't get me wrong, I've used the product a ton...for...competitive analysis...but I've never been able to pull the trigger on the 9.99 monthly subscription fee and my mobile music listening habits have remained firmly rooted in podcasts because I'm usually concerned with what's new, not necessarily creating epic playlists, which is really what spotify allows you to do (in the cloud). Podcasts are free...so again, I can't really see the value in paying for spotify when I can barely get through all of the free music podcasts deliver on a weekly basis.

And it's funny, the tool I want to share with you today wasn't even developed by spotify, which continues to prove how important it is to have open source software, generous API's, and application marketplaces. It's the add ons developed by random dudes in their basements that will finally convert resistant people like me into a user.

Behold, music magic: 

http://magicplaylist.co/?ref=producthunt

I tried to trick this thing and typed in some pretty random Trance artists and tracks but it was still able to come up with playlists. And for someone who has spent the last 4 years focusing specifically on podcasts and reviewing singular EDM tracks, this thing might be able to help me drastically improve my music library for entertaining less EDM focused guests at parties etc.

Chill playlists, 90's hip-hop, R&B...Genres I really enjoy but haven't dedicated any time to curating over the last 4 years...I can create playlists and save them to spotify in seconds. And that solves a huge problem for me.

Shout out to the guys that developed this. Maybe I can hire them to help me build a new streaming service in the near future.

If you're interested in doing something like that, connect with me on linkedin.

Daniel Taibleson Q4 - Write 3 Times a Week

After doing an internal assessment of where I'm current at in life using Maslow's hierarchy of needs I've determined how I should prioritize my personal "Q4."

Treating your life like a business might sound crazy or too extreme to some, but I often find that the structure is helpful and battle tested by hundreds of years of economic research. Not to mention the best part about this process is that you don't have to adhere to the normal rules of business. So as soon as you discover some aspect of this structure is unappealing to you, or undesirable, you can simply change the paradigm and create a new one, or one that morphs over time.

In fact, I'm not measuring anything in this post like a normal business would. All I'm doing is stealing some terminology to make things make sense to me in a way that I can easily digest.

I'm choosing to share these thoughts with you because I believe 1) it will make me more accountable and 2) they are pretty solid, basic things that other people in their 20's might want to consider focusing on (or they already are).

• Extreme focus on diet and exercise
• But exercise in natural ways, not only exercise that take place in nature, like hiking, but simpler exercise like walking. Participate in team sports over individual workouts (again, I include this in my definition of "more natural" since personal fitness is a relatively new phenomena on the human timeline). Knock out 100 pushups a day to keep the chest on point, but other than that, enjoy the camaraderie that comes from engaging in team sports outside of the work place (where losing can be debilitatingly stressful) and instead, remember what it feels like to keep pushing when you're behind by 10, remind yourself about how to lose with grace and shake hands after the game. Practice detaching your emotions from your daily performance. Remember, you win some you lose some. 
• Read at least 2 books at a time, all the time
• This leads to click moments (ah-ha moments, moments of inspiration, moments of creativity connected by engaging in self-education that happen outside your normal field of work/study) and furthers personal education that leads to enhanced creativity. 
• Listen to podcasts
• Just found a list of the top 20 business podcasts for 2015 that I'm really digging. These are consumed mostly on morning walks and during commutes to work. 
• Write at least 3 times a week. 
• I had to be realistic about this and give myself a goal that is attainable. I wanted to write everyday but the weekends are really hard to do when I spend time with my son. I want to make sure I'm actually providing some value in the blog posts that I write (not simply adding value to myself by increasing the number of published posts on this blog). 3x a week seems realistic and I look forward to hitting this number consistently, building my confidence as a writer, and also providing some really amazing content about content marketing. 
• Have dinner or lunch with an old friend or new acquaintance at least 2x a week. 
• This is simply a way to leave room for serendipity in my life. I love catching up with old friends and I love making new ones. But I've also found that I truly enjoy one-on-one meetings. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about the team, but there is a different side to creating an intimate connection with someone that can only be produced by spending some quality time together in a safe space where each person is able to confide in the other or simply express their authentic self as many people tend to change their behavior in group settings. 
• Make sure you have an interesting person/activity fund that you budget for. 1-3k a quarter is realistic depending on your income. It's totally fair to say, "I'm going to set aside $1,000 over the next 3 months to say yes to anyone that asks me to dinner. Or "I'm going to spend $1000 over the next 3 months on two trips to San Fran in order to make some new connections in a city where my industry is taking off." And then just do it. Even if you only meet one person per trip, that one person can connect you to their whole network. (Don't forget to invest in yourself). 
• Make friends at work. 
• This is a no brainer and very simple, straightforward initiative: Be kind, be compassionate, listen, add value, follow the golden rule. 
• Learn about FHA loans! 
• Now this is more specific, but after moving back to Seattle from Arizona, there is no way I want to dump 12k a year into renting a small 1 bedroom studio in downtown Seattle. I need to crunch the numbers and figure out what I can afford and how I'm going to get it done. This is definitely the most specific goal for Q4, but 1) it's good to have a few specific goals and 2) it's one of the most important things I need to focus on as it's a huge investment that could also set things off in a positive direction for years to come. 

What are your Q4 goals? I'd love to know in the comments. They might inspire me to rethink my plans! 

Disproportionate Effects

I was doing some introspective journaling in my private, offline journal and for some reason I decided to use Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid to psychoanalyze my current state of existence (woahhh, heavy dude...okay not really, just something fun to use as a measuring stick of "where am I at?").  

The interesting insight that I felt like sharing is that health, located in the second Safety section of the pyramid (a step above our physiological needs) seems to have a disproportionate effect on my wellbeing. That is to say, both levels above and below, above: love & belonging, esteem, and also below: physiological needs like "sleep," are more deeply effected by the effort (effort = time + focus) I spend on my personal health. Which also leads to greater creativity (located at the top of the pyramid in "Self-Actualization"). 

If nothing else, let this serve as a reminder to get 8 hours of sleep a night, drink tons of water, and realize that you must sometimes be rooted in your routine in order to be violently creative in your work. 

I chose the words "rooted in your routine" specifically, and rather than "boring," even though it was the first word to cross my mind. 

You never need to be boring. Reading isn't boring unless you're reading about a boring subject. And writing should never be boring because you should be writing about things you know! Or reading about things until you know them well enough to write ;) 

All that being said, I've noticed a huge improvement in my...I don't know what you call it...overall performance (?) since I've put a huge amount of focus and emphasis on my health. 

I've always been a healthy guy, playing hockey all the way up through college, but doubling down my my diet and water intake, making time for long walks, and activities that appease my mental health (doing random things or learning about things outside my sphere of excellence) has seemed to be, again, disproportionately effective in it's ability to create positive results. 

Take control of your well-being! Remember that you can't help anyone if you don't help yourself first. 

High level Content Strategy

Purpose

The purpose of this blog post is to give anyone a high-level view of what Content Strategy is and how it works. You should be able to walk away from this article nodding your heads with a decent understanding that you could then take to someone else and explain: This is what content strategy is.

This is a very, very simple way of explaining things in a fast-moving conversation but has proven to be extremely effective for me in it's ability to convey that I know what I'm talking about.

So if you want to sound like you know what you're talking about...keep reading.

Intro

I've been going through the interview process for about 6 weeks now after moving back to Seattle from Phoenix in mid-August. During that time I've been talking with a lot of people about what content strategy is and what content strategists do. At first I was finding it hard to communicate because I was more concerned with explaining my story and how I'd ended up at their door, but eventually I learned to distill things down to a very simple formula that I believe works for communicating the core principles content strategy.

Who is this for

Content Strategy can be a confusing topic for:

• People who don't work in marketing. 
• Is that you? Don't worry, this is still extremely important for you to understand because you now live in a digital world and are affected by good and bad content strategy, keep reading!
• Marketing and advertising professionals that work on the Account and/or Media side of the business.  
• Not that you aren't strategists, you just don't spend all day in the creative world ensuring you're finger is on the pulse of the latest content marketing tactics. This post should provide some added clarity when it comes to conversations with highly educated clients or horizontally, your industry counterparts. This post will make you smarter. 
• Agencies with clients who don't understand the value. 
• Good news! This blog post should help you convince them why content strategy is important and why they should give you MORE MONEY to do more of it. 
• Literally anyone who doesn't know what SEO stands for. 
• Hint: it stands for search engine optimization. 

Search Engine Optimization

Okay, so to really understand why this is important from a high level, you kind of need to understand how search engine optimization is and how it works. The good news, we can boil it down to one sentence, albeit a bit of a mouthful: 

"Who ever has the most links back to their website on a specific keyword or key phrase ranks the highest in google for that keyword or phrase."  

Now take that with a grain of salt. Google has over 200 different factors that contribute to how sites are ranked (another data point you can drop in a client convo) but that sentence above, that is 95% of the algorithm. After that, it's: 

• How long has your site been around? 
• And, are you following all of Google's other rules like: 
• You can't get paid to post links back to other peoples sites
• You site needs to be mobile friendly
• You haz lots of social shares? Super. You're cool, we'll rank you a lil higher. 

The Rub 

So you might have noticed something from what I just explained above. The way to rank the highest is to have the most links back to your site...but I also said you aren't allowed to pay for them...

Google's mission is to organize the worlds information. 

It's every company's goal to manipulate Google's algorithm in order to rank higher, get more people to view their site, and convert those visitors into customers. (The first 5 search results get 75% of the clicks). 

So you want more links, but you can't pay...Boom! Enter Content Strategy. 

Someone has to figure out how to create content that's cool enough or useful enough to encourage people to share and link back to. That's pretty much it. 

How you do that? How do you create content that's cool enough or resourceful enough to get people to share it, link back to it, or even buy your product simply from viewing or engaging with your content?!?!  - Honestly, this is more of a question for the agency crowd so we're going to skip that and come back to it another time. For the sake of time, and making sure you walk away with something tangible, let's understand the core principles, and let's understand them in human speak, not crazy convoluted marketing speech.

Content Strategy 

Okay. So you totally get why content strategy is a thing now...but again...what is it...well, in the most basic terms I can use to break things down, this is how I explain it to other people in conversation: 

• What are we saying
• How are we saying it 
• What's our process for creating the content
• And what's the process for measuring it? 

Now don't get me wrong, we can go deep on all 4 of these points, and I intend to in different blog posts, for example, if we wanted to talk about point number 2 "How are we saying it" we would have a conversation about: What channels of communication are we using? Social media? Facebook vs Instagram? Email? Even traditional creative like TV, Radio or Print should be driven by the content strategy which is the guiding light behind everything you do. The real way to answer this question quickly is: Will this help us get where we're going?

But again, let's not get wrapped up in the tactics right now, memorize those 4 things above and you'll be miles ahead of the rest. 

An even shorter definition of content strategy coming from Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach's book Content Strategy For The Web is: 

"Content strategy guides your plan for the creation, delivery, and governance of content." 

If you want to dive deeper you can come back to my blog or you can simply go buy the book I've linked to above. It's literally THE book on content strategy and I suggest every serious professional content strategist have a copy in the top drawer of their desk at work. I do. 

Conclusion 

• What are we saying
• How are we saying it 
• What's our process for creating the content
• And, what is the process for measuring it? 

Got it? Of course you do! You're a smart cookie.

The next step is to start noticing how you're being marketed to and realize how stupid most of it is. How it lacks a comprehensive strategy that moves consumers down the purchase funnel and communicates consistently across the channels you spend the most time on.

Use what you've learned in this article to create your own insights into either your own work, your agencies work, or you're day-to-day life so you can learn to communicate more effectively.

Be Relentless. Be Curious. Be Human.

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Image credit: https://dribbble.com/shots/978690-Content-is-like-water

There's no such thing as smart.

There's no such thing as smart.

You either have a fixed mindset or growth mindset.

You're either a novice or an expert.

You might have been born with a big brain. Congratulations. But that doesn't mean you're naturally more intelligent than the kid next to you in the library studying eight hours a day when you only study for one.

As a father, this concept of who is smart and who isn't has become very important to me. How do we go about praising our children without hindering them?

How does this apply to the workplace and in our personal relationships?

After listening to the latest episode of the Art of Charm with Dr. Carl Dweck, I've realized that I tend to give a lot of surface level praise: "You're really smart. You have the talent. He's a genius, She's a genius. Everyone on my team is a genius!"

I feel foolish. Because a teams success has nothing to do with how smart you are, how talented you are, in the end, it all comes down to handwork. There's simply no substitute for for a junk yard dog mentality. 

What's even more interesting is that it took me 26 years on earth to have this honest conversation with myself about how I communicate with other people. Especially young children. Then again, I've always been told that I'm "great" at communicating. So it wasn't something I really thought I needed to work on until I become a father. What's even funnier is: The things I'm learning about communicating with children are just as applicable to adults. 

So how should we praise?

According to dr. Carol Dweck we should focus on praising the process. Praising the hard work that went into the accomplishment. The good strategy they used, their perseverance, their improvement. She says that doing this will put people into a growth mindset and equip them with the values that they need to be successful.

Allow me to paraphrase: If you want someone to be independent, you need to praise them for the traits they display that allow them to stand on their own two feet. Praise the process, not the result.

Makes sense to me.

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artwork: https://dribbble.com/shots/1629146-How-Love-Works

Wake up early

My sister and I are only 17 months apart, but we only went to the same school for ~3 years. Kindergarten, 1st grade, and my 7th grade year, her 8th grade. I went to boarding school to play hockey in high school, she went to a different elementary school because she tested into a "highly capable" program. So our paths only crossed in middle school. That was one hell of a year.

But that doesn't mean we don't have a lot of the same friends from the Shoreline area. And if they were our friend, then they definitely know our Mother. Joyce has had a way of leaving a lasting impression on everyone she meets. She's a brilliant MD and an even better company.

And of course she's provided us with little gems like the The 25 Commandments of Safe Partying.

I was reminded recently of another saying that seemed to resonate with some of my sister and I's friends even years later:

"Most of life's problem can be avoided by staying sober and waking up early."

Stay sober, check. Wake up early....errrrrrr...fine.

Here's to a winter in the Pacific Northwest filled with morning workouts in the dark. I'm trying to get mentally prepared as quickly as possible. Who's on the 6am train with me?

I think another huge issue in our society is that we praise people for getting a lack of sleep. As though it somehow proves our dedication to our work.

How about showing some dedication to yourself? Some dedication to bringing your best self to the office everyday. Giving your team 100% of what you have to offer. You can't do that 3 hours.

That doesn't mean there won't be sleepless nights. There will be, and there should be. But they should be few and far between.

If you feel scattered, you aren't doing it right.

Slow down. Take your time.

Get some sleep.

Goodnight.

Falling in love at work

I just finishing watching Mandy Len Carton's Ted Talk on Falling in love. She was a small-time blogger who participated in a educational study about love, wrote a piece about how her and her significant other fell in love in the laboratory, and the article ended up making it into the New York Times.

You can read it here: To fall in love with anyone, do this.

Talk about clickbait! It's no surprise she admits the title of the article was the only part of the post she didn't write.

The Ted Talk isn't on Youtube yet so I can't embed it, but if you have 13 min to spare, check it out here: Falling in love is the easy part.

The reason this is so interesting to me is because I'm curious to know if these 36 questions would be applicable and even beneficial for startup teams to ask one another.

I was in a Fraternity and even then, you basically just do a bunch of "secret" stuff that helps you get to know each other on a more intimate level. (Shared experiences creating a bond of significant meaning)

As I go through the current job hunting process I find myself having conflicting feelings about how long the process can take. On one side of the coin it's just my ego getting wrapped up in the process, "why is it taking so long for me to find the right fit?" When I've only been back and actively seeking new gigs for a month. The other truth that I understand and agree with is that it would be foolish to hire and invest in someone without attempting to get to know the person as much as possible.

When we first started OnlyTheBeat.com, I would literally let anyone join the team as long as I felt they were as excited about it as I was. That turned out to be a huge mistake. And one of the biggest lessons I've learned over the last 3 and a half years hiring writers.

There has to be some sort of interview process that breaks down walls and allows you to get to know a person...you know, like, more personally. (We now have a 3 step process that includes providing a "Your Story" writing example)

But where do you draw the line?

At one of my recent employers where I got to interview candidates we had an interview question, "what is the hardest decision you've ever had to make?" And I was thrilled that I got it ask this in an interview one time...Only to have the other people in the room interviewing with me laugh nervously and add "he means the hardest decision in the work place of course!"

No I didn't.

I meant the hardest decision you've ever had to make. How did you make it. That's literally more important to me than anything else we might have asked. It tells you so much about a person and what they value, what they've lost, and how they've bounced back.

And I get it, some people want to keep work and their personal lives separate, but if you don't want to open up about your personal life, then what are we really doing here? The meaning that we derive from our relationships dictates the meaning in our lives, and if you're going to spend 1/3 of your day with someone, don't you want to get to know them on a deeper personal level before you spend all that time with them?

This is a real interview: Agency Wants Its Next Art Director to Be Cool, So the Interview Will Be Over Two Days in Vegas

Now that's what I'm talking about. Except I think 3 or 4 days in Vegas would REALLY allow you to see who that person is. You can survive Vegas for 48 hours and still be at 70-80% if you know you're being watched, but come hour 73 or 84, you better believe you're going to have some insight into who the other person is and how they handle stress. Lol.

I don't necessarily like the title of the article, I don't think it has to do with being cool. I think it has more to do with putting someone out into the wild and seeing how they react to precarious situations, which is, like, all day everyday in real life.

And again, there it is.

Real life. Real people.

Real recognize real.

It's the same reason Donald Trump is getting so much love, because he is way too real.

But people are responding to it because even if it is preposterous and ridiculous, at least it isn't clearly, obviously, and insanely fake. It doesn't sound good, but it doesn't sound like he's lying either.

(Uneducated, insensitive, and making things up, well, that's another story, he definitely makes a bunch of BS up).

It's just more like insanely too real. Which makes for great entertainment. (key word, entertainment).

So here are the 36 questions from the love experiment.

It's also worth noting that at the end, if you are doing this with someone in the pursuit of love, you're supposed to finish by staring into each others eyes for four minutes without speaking:

Set I

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?

3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?

4. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?

5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?

7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.

12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

Set II

13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?

14. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

16. What do you value most in a friendship?

17. What is your most treasured memory?

18. What is your most terrible memory?

19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

20. What does friendship mean to you?

21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?

22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?

24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

Set III

25. Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling ... “

26. Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share ... “

27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.

28. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.

29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?

34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

OKAY PHEW.

Those were intense. But if we're working together at a startup...shouldn't we know a lot of these things about our coworkers?...Aren't these questions two startup founders have unintentionally asked one another during their conversations before deciding to start a company together? I sure hope so...Because starting a company together IS like getting married!

If you want to look at it from the opposite side of the table, I think I'd have a hard time investing in a startup where the founders didn't know what their co-founder felt was "too serious to be joked about" (question #32).

No where in this list of questions is anyone asked to reveal anything about their sex life or answer questions of a sexual nature...but the question remains...do you think they're too personal for the work place? Or would you adopt something like this for your own startup, pairing co-workers together one evening to sit down and have a heart to heart? Would you ask these questions in an interview?

Even if the person ended up not being a good fit for the team, or taking a job elsewhere, I have a hard time believing you wouldn't walk away with a new friend.

The Great Suspender

Blogging about technology is something that I love to do.

But I don't necessarily like to blog technology in the same way I review music on OnlyTheBeat.com.

Listening to music is more of an emotional experience where as technology plays more of a utilitarian role in my life. When I do discover useful technology that solves real problems for me I share it here on my blog. Usually devoid of the pomp and fluff that I provide when describing my favorite genre: melodic, euphoric, uplifting, big room Trance.

The Great Suspender is one of my new favorite chrome extensions. It "automatically suspends unused tabs to free up system resources."

Aka, for those of us that might not have the latest macbook and run into issues when we have more than a few tabs open, this bad boy swoops in to save the day.

Pro tip: Make sure you turn on the screen shot option in the settings so that when you come back to a tab, you can see (remember) what was actually on the page :)

More info:

"The Great Suspender is a lightweight chrome extension to help reduce chrome's memory footprint for users that like to have too many tabs open at the same time. This extension will automagically unload each tab while retaining its favicon and title text. A tab can be restored by clicking anywhere on the page when it is needed. This reduces the number of dom elements on the page and ensures no memory leaks or excessive javascripts are running."

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I WANT TO....

https://dribbble.com/shots/2246048-Hide-Seek-Pivot-tree

Whatever it is that you want to do...graphic design, copywriting...there's one place to go in Seattle for a post-grad education in Advertising and Marketing:

http://www.svcseattle.com/

The School of Visual Concepts was founded in 1971 and has been shepherding creatives into the agency jobs of their dreams ever since.

Tonight I attended a free panel discussion at their (slightly) new location (new for me as the office has moved since I last took a class in 2010) about the future of digital design and technology.

We heard from 5 very successful designers on everything from their personal design philosophy to their predictions about disruptive technology (like VR). And of course, they answered our questions :)

Shout out to Surya Vanka for hosting the event - @suryavanka

And a massive shout out to all of the panelist for taking the time out of their busy lives to give us some insight into their worlds, providing us with new persecutive about the future of design.

Chris Stauch from Deloitte - @workerant47
David Conrad from Design Commission - @davidconrad
Matt Dente from Fell Swoop - @mdente
Pete Wright from Urban Influence - @pigeonwisdom
And last but certainly not least Carol Chapman from - @Possible

The short story...hmmm...I guess it would be: Work hard, don't be entitled, "iterate, prototype, test, repeat", learn to write, and virtual reality is the future.

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How are you scheduling your time?

One of the most shocking things I experience while going through the interview process with Amazon was the lack of technology used in the process of scheduling the actual times to talk. I'm sure they have their reasons for operating the way they do. Jeff Bezos doesn't seem like the type to let such an inefficiency slip, I just thought it was interesting that I had a point of contact for job related questions and a different point of contact for scheduling my interviews. Two separate humans.

The reason this is on my mind is because I've been meeting up with a ton of people since I've been back in Seattle and it's been interesting to see how everyone goes about scheduling their time. Booking their time. Arranging their time. Managing their time. It's only the most important thing we do...So I've been watching and taking notes, the results have been interesting.

The first thing that really struck me, for which I now have a hypothesis, is that my generation seems to have skipped email for personal use and all of the calendar tools that came with it. We had email in high school but we had it so early on that when Facebook came around (my Sophomore year of high school) email quickly became a distant, stuffy tool that we were forced to use in order to communicate with old people (who would undoubtedly respond with some sort of message that brought fear or the fear of more homework). And in that transition, similar to the transition from home phones to cell phones (which yes! I did live through!), we completely lost touch with the need or ability to remember anyones email address. I now know about...3 peoples email addresses by heart. Maybe 10 because I have my own business so I know most of them are laid out like: firstname@onlythebeat.com. Still, I'd be guessing.

For the sake of trying to keep these posts short and easy to digest, I'll cut to the chase and provide you with two, yes TWO amazing Google Chrome extensions that you can add to your gmail inbox in order to start managing your time better today:

1. http://assistant.to/
2. https://calendly.com/

Both are pretty cool...The only real difference I've seen, being on both side of the user experience, is that Assistant keeps the experience in your receivers gmail inbox while Calendly takes them to a web-based landing page. This is for a good reason though. If you upgrade to the paid version of Calendly that landing page can provide different options for the user, such as "Book a 15 min design critique" or "Are you my client? Book a 30 min chat." It makes sense to move the experience once more options are involved. I also give the design award to Calendly, recently removing Assistant.to from my gmail inbox because of some frustrations with how it was cluttering my emails.

I have to run! Check back for more tomorrow :)

p.s. the OTB Instagram is up to 2,335 followers (see Crowdfire)

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Crowdfire

Whether we like to admit it or not, social media followings continue to hold a lot clout (in every industry) because they give us a common benchmark with which to compare ourselves to our competitors.

Who you should compare yourself to, and in what capacity, is a completely different post all together...But if you're looking for some great personal development articles about how NOT to compare yourself to the wrong people, check out this recent post on The Art of Charm blog: Enjoying Success at Your Own Pace

Back to social.

There is something weird happening in the social media ecosystem. Generations are fractioning at ever-increasing rates and each new generation is differentiating and defining themselves by the social apps they're adopting and choosing to engage with. I've heard that Facebook is a 22-year-old and up platform, and from what I've experienced that seems to be a pretty legit generalization (caveat: I preach that we should never to make large sweeping generalizations). I was in High School when Facebook came out and was still exclusive to University students but because the school I went to gave us ".edu" email addresses we were able to create accounts and I'll be honest, that changed everything. I was pretty obsessed with Facebook all the way through college and it's been eye opening to meet younger kids that didn't even care about it.

The reason this is a big deal is because I've let my own passion for specific platforms affect my business decisions in the past.

I even let myself get talked OUT of using YouTube in exchange for Vimeo when I first started Only The Beat. Of course Vimeo had better video quality...but the discovery for your videos on the platform is zilch. Don't worry, not only have I learned from that mistake, I'm planning on making YouTube the center of our new strategy moving forward until we decide whether we're going to build out our own player or go for a turn key solution like Lessthan3.com is doing...but of course, the CEO of the video player they're using is also the CEO of Lessthan3...aka...he's just a really smart dude and realized that the video player he needed to create for his site could also be a turn-key product and completely separate viable business (since video is the future).

We make jokes like ROI (RADIO ON INTERNET) on TV shows like Silicon Valley...but it IS interesting that it really took so long for us to come full circle and bring video to the internet and make it front and center. We're talking about video on Facebook like it's some new insane thing when the first TV was invented in 1927, but I guess that's a testament to the complexity of serving millions of hours of video a day to billions of people all over the world.

I'm determined not to let this happen again. Instagram is another platform that I've shied away from personally, I've never been big on posting pictures (leaving evidence!), but there's no denying the power it has over Millennial's.

I'm going to make Instagram a focus of my work over the next few weeks, learn the in's and out's, figure out how to generate successful creative, and really learn to harness it as a marketing tool. The first step? Crowdfire. My friend has used it to gain over 7k followers on his company's Instagram in a month. All real, engaged followers. That was enough to convince me to spend the $20 a month to have 2 team members and manage 5 accounts.

Sitting at 1,796 followers as of 9/11/2015

I thought I'd give it a go and let you guys know how it works out. After just a few days of dinking around we've added ~100 followers with minimal effort. So I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out. Don't drink the coolaid just yet, I'll keep you guys posted.

He's also advised me to use iconosquare.com for Instagram analytics and comment management, which I will also be doing and reporting back on. The yearly subscription only runs you $28.80. I'm excited to get started.

Better Than a Pitch

I get pitched a lot.

20-30 promos a day. Track submissions, contact form submissions, messages from publicists to my personal Facebook inbox, and the worst, in public places.

There are a ton of good articles out there on the internet about "How to write a better pitch email." If you want advice about how to write a better pitch email, great, Google "How to write a better pitch email" and read everything you can.

(Want a quicker path to success? Simply be genuine and use empathy to determine what matters most to the person to you're emailing, steer the conversation in that direction, find out what motivates them.)

Here's an even better idea...before you go out and read 100 articles about how to craft a better pitch email, determine which writer you are going to reach out to.

That's right, not which publication or blog, but the specific writer.

If you send me an email pitching me a new song, my typical response is something along the lines of:

Hey XYZ, 

Thanks for sending over the new track...But honestly, I'm not the best person to reach out to, you'd be better off befriending a writer on the team that posts about a similar genre as the track you want reviewed. Or, go find a writer who has already covered your artist and hit them up :)  

Good luck! 

Yes I am the CEO of Onlythebeat.com and yes I am ultimately the gatekeeper on content...but I need you to pitch writers that have covered the same topics before, the same artists. I need you to make the connection for yourself. Especially if you're a publicist working with a specific artist...If you haven't searched the site to see if we've covered your artist before, then you're just making life harder on yourself by cold-pitching me instead of contacting someone who's already clearly passionate about your artist.

Here's another way to think about it....If you didn't know President Obama, you wouldn't email President Obama to get the email address of his Chief of Staff.

You will be 100 times more successful reaching out to one of my House Music writers than pitching me a single House Music track because I don't have time to do the track write up. If you wanted to catch my eye then reach out to me about doing exclusive video content with your artist (or yourself) when you're in Seattle. I like the sound of that. Until then, really try to think about who in the organization would benefit the most from doing the thing that you're asking for, contact them.

And always follow up until you get a no.

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Are you marketing like it's 2015?

Content is king. 

Let's refine that statement: Amazing content with even better context is king. 

Should we refine it even more? Or is it time for marketers to stop talking about how "content is king" move the conversation forward in a more mature direction? 

I feel like the saying "content is king" has been around since the TV was invented. Duh. Hellllllo. We know content is king. 

Maybe what we should really be saying is: Having a well defined, thoughtful, and daftly executed content strategy is king. 

And content strategy isn't just "what blog posts should we write this month?"

Don't get me wrong, that is a very real part of content strategy. When it's done right it can have a massive effect for a brand of any size. But it's just one small part of the game. The content strategy role is a role that is no longer ignorable within marketing departments at any organization. Content strategy is applicable to every piece of creative that a brand produces. 

Most people don't have an intricate knowledge of the organizational structure of an ad agency, so the role of "content strategist" might sound foreign, but I view it as a hybrid of the account planning and copywriter positions. A role that lives in both worlds, strategic planning and creative. A role that requires a deep understanding of what makes the consumer tick as well as a deep understanding of the tools and resources available to execute on a given strategy. 

That means constant psychology/consumer research and a healthy does of Techcrunch and product hunt.  

The point is it's 2015. There are smarter ways for brands to be spending their money. New technology and innovation has opened new doors to help you reach THE RIGHT consumers more effectively and with more efficiency. 

Now ask yourself, is that what you're doing? 

If you want to see what the most innovative digital brands are doing, check out theAmplify.