Finally cutting the cord

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Despite my constant desire for the latest and greatest technology, I’ve held onto traditional TV delivery until today. We did some digging and just made the switch from Uverse TV (which was really pretty solid) to a handful of streaming services: Netflix, Hulu, YouTube TV and Sling TV.

When AT&T added fiber internet to our neighborhood a few years ago, we jumped on it. The speeds are amazing, and even the TV prices were much lower than Comcast. It was a no-brainer. Now we’re taking it a step further and going with just the fiber internet from them and cutting everything else — we had four DVRs and a bunch of channels. Taking internet by itself (and removing the “bundle discount”) raised the internet price a bit, but still brought our total price down by $152/mo. We added $92 worth of streaming services, for a total savings of about $60/mo.

Starting my research, my only requirement is that it must work with Google Chromecast (since we have them on every TV). That ruled out the Philo service, which otherwise looked pretty solid. We also ruled out DIRECTV NOW; it’s a solid service, but Sling TV worked out better for us.

Here’s what we went with:

Netflix: $10.99

We’ve had Netflix for the past few years anyhow, so this wasn’t a new expense. Lots of great shows and movies in there.

YouTube TV: $40

This is the main service we’ll be using. Not only does it have a ton of good content, but the interface is the best of any of the services out there. It feels a bit more like a traditional cable interface, which might be why I like it.

Sling TV: $44.99

The Sling pricing is a bit weird, but ultimately got us what we needed. YouTube TV covered most of our needs, but Sling added Food Network, HGTV, NFL Red Zone and a bunch of others (Comedy Central, more kids channels, History, MTV, etc). We’re signed up for their “Sling Blue” ($24.99) along with “Sports Extra” ($10) and the “4 Extras” ($10) for more comedy, kids, news and lifestyle.

Hulu: $7.99

Hulu has “Hulu Live” ($39.99), which is similar to Sling and YouTube, but was unnecessary since we had those other two services. However, getting some of the other core Hulu services helped us to round things out.

As we were sorting things out, I build a spreadsheet of the core channels on YouTube TV and Sling TV (with the options outlined above) so we could see how things were covered. While they duplicate quite a few channels, they have a lot on each site that are not on the other. Between the two of them, we have pretty much everything. You can see the full comparison in this PDF.

As an added bonus, YouTube TV works well with Google Home and Chromecast (and we have both in most rooms), so now I can just yell “Hey Google, play the Braves game on YouTube TV in the family room” and it’ll start up. Pretty slick.

Have you cut the cable yet? Which streaming service(s) are you using?

My first real post with Gutenberg

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 3 minutes

If you do much work in the WordPress world, you have likely heard about the new “Gutenberg” editor that is coming to WordPress in the coming months. It’s a drastic change to how you work with posts and pages, and it should be a great thing.

If you’re not familiar with it, this Meetup recap (including slides and a video) should help.

A world of blocks

The biggest change with Gutenberg is that your main WordPress editor is changing from a big window of text you can edit, into a world where you add lots of “blocks” of content as you work down the page. The header “a world of blocks” above is a block. This paragraph is a block.

This quote is a block

  • This
  • list
  • is
  • a
  • block
This "verse" is a block.

That image was a block

There are literally dozens of different kinds of blocks that you can add to a page, and you can extend that via plugins that offer more kinds of blocks. The end result is that it’s easier to add a video, insert some custom code, build a table, or anything else you want to do.

One of the best things about the block mentality is that the content of the blocks are separate. In the past, many of us have carefully crafted a WordPress post, perhaps inserted some special code from MailChimp or somewhere, and then watched in horror as WordPress “fixed” it for us. With separate blocks, that’s not a concern.

This site is now using blocks

To help test it further, I’ve installed the Gutenberg plugin and am now using it full-time on this site. You probably should not do the same. While the plugin is nearly ready for prime time, it’s still technically in beta and could do some strange things.

While you shouldn’t use Gutenberg on any production sites, you absolutely should be playing with it on a test server somewhere. If you don’t have the means to set up a test server, you can create an account on this site to try it out for yourself.

Will it break my current site?

Probably not. The specifics of how the new editor is going to be introduced is still up in the air, but some of the basics give me peace in knowing that most sites will be fine.

First, WordPress powers 30% of the entire internet — we’re talking about hundreds of millions of sites. You know they’re going to be incredibly careful about how this rolls out.

Second, the way your old posts and pages will be treated should be solid. One of the blocks you can add is a “classic” block; a block that works just like the editor you’re already used to. When you upgrade to WordPress 5.0, it’s likely that your existing posts and pages will be changed to use the Gutenberg editor by taking all of the content on that page and putting it in one big classic block. No mess, no problem. It should work well.

If you then want to spend the time to rebuild it using separate blocks, go for it. If you don’t, that’s fine too.

When is it coming?

As of now, there is no official launch date for Gutenberg. It will be part of WordPress 5.0, and will be released when it’s ready. Most suspect that will happen in the next few months, though no one knows for sure yet.

I’m excited about this big shift for WordPress and I hope you are too! I’ll certainly be sharing more (either here or on the GreenMellen blog) as it approaches.

What are you most excited (or most scared) about with Gutenberg?

My take on the Google Pixel Buds vs the Apple AirPods

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 3 minutesWhen it comes to mobile devices, Apple and Google are constantly playing catch-up with one another. One will release a product or concept, and the other will soon follow suit. In this case we’re talking about headphones; the new Google Pixel Buds, which I recently picked up, that were released on the heels of Apple’s AirPods late in 2017.

Similarities

The headphones share some similarities with one another, and they’re all good things.

  • Both pair with your phone rather automagically, instead of the traditional bluetooth headphone setup.
  • Both are designed to be non-isolating, meaning they perch in your ear rather than in your ear canal, making it easier to hear the outside world. Some don’t like this feature, but to me it was a huge selling point. In the case of the Pixel Buds, I can hear people talking to me virtually 100% as well as if I didn’t have them in (with nothing playing, of course).
  • Both recharge automatically when they’re in their storage case, which is a nice way to handle things.
  • Both have excellent audio quality, especially considering their non-isolating design.

Differences

Despite the similarities, these are very different headphones.

  • Design: They look very different. I’ve heard varying takes on which is better, and most people have a favorite, but both are well-designed, look great, and fit well in your ear.
  • Connecting Cord: The Pixel Buds include a short cord connecting the two ears, which lays on the back of your neck. I mentioned there are varying opinions about the design of the Buds, but the cord is a very divisive feature and people absolutely love it or hate.
    • I love it — not only does it reduce the chance of losing one, but it’s nice to be able to slip them off your ears and hang them around your neck, like people have done with headphones for years.
    • However, this makes it where you can’t easily share one ear per friend, and some people don’t like the feel of the cord on the back of their neck.
  • The Cases: I mentioned the cases are similar, but there’s one big difference. Because of the cord connecting the two Pixel Buds, it’s more of a hassle to put in the case. It’s not a big deal, but it’s a lot different than just slipping the two AirPods in the case.
  • Touch Functionality: The AirPods have a bit of touch functionality, but the Pixel Buds have a ton.
    • The AirPods allow you to double-tap to active a feature (which you can set up in the app). It can be to activate Siri, play/pause your music, skip to the next track, etc. The key is that you can only set up one of those, along with it answering/hanging up phone calls with that double-tap.
    • The Pixel Buds give you a lot of control. You can single-tap to play/pause music or answer a call, double-tap to hear details about recent notifications, swipe forward/back to raise/lower the volume, and long press to activate the Google Assistant or hang up a call.
  • Bonus Feature: The Pixel Buds feature the real-time language translation feature. It’s really cool, but more hype than reality, in that it’s not that different from just pulling up the Google Translate app and taking turns talking to it.

Battery life

Both sets of headphones promote similar battery life — five hours of listening time per charge, and the ability to recharge using the case for up to 24 hours of total listening time. However, I couldn’t find details on non-listening time; if you just had them in your ears, took some calls, listened to notifications, used the Google Assistant, etc, so I did some tracking.

Saturday I put the Pixel Buds in my ears, and periodically checked the battery level throughout the day. I took a few phone calls, played some games (essentially the same as streaming music), checked notifications, etc. Here’s how the levels looked at various times throughout the day:

  • 12:20 – 100%
  • 1:30 – 90%
  • 2:34 – 82%
  • 5:00 – 56%
  • 6:15 – 42%
  • 7:47 – 25%
  • 9:21 – 7%

All in all, I got about nine hours out of them with moderate use. Not bad! I suspect the AirPods would be similar.

Which should I get?

Despite some negative reviews for the Pixel Buds, they’re pretty great headphones. While you can use either pair of headphones with any kind of phone, they work best when they’re native

— AirPods with iPhone, Pixel Buds with Android.

If you have the money to spend on them, or find a good deal where they’re free with some other purchase, I encourage you to purchase the ones that match best with your device and you’ll be very happy with the results.

What is your favorite pair of headphones?

The Galaxy Note 8 vs the Google Pixel 2 XL

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 3 minutesIn mid-2016, I was super excited to get the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. The rumored specs were amazing, and the resulting phone was as well. I got it, and it was an awesome phone with some really neat features. However, as you likely know, the Note was recalled due to battery issues, so I had to go elsewhere and I picked up the Google Pixel which was a great phone as well.

When the 2017 versions of both phones were announced this year, I spent a while debating the merits of each. I loved the Pixels, but hated having to give back the Note. I eventually purchased the Note 8 and have been using it for the past few months. Then, due to some swapping within our family, I’ve moved to the Pixel 2 XL.

At the end of the day, they’re both excellent phones and you can’t go wrong with either. However, here’s how I see some of the differences with them.

The Galaxy Note 8 is an exciting phone

The Note 8 is intended to amaze. It has the curved edges on the screen, and things you don’t see on almost any other phone:

  • One of the largest, sharpest screens around.
  • Fully waterproof (like most phones these days).
  • The most RAM you can find in a phone (6GB).
  • Expandable storage with an SD card.
  • Wireless charging.
  • The magic S Pen. The pen really is neat, though I didn’t really use it too often. My kids both have a Note 8 now, and they use the Pens a lot.

The Pixel 2 XL is like coming home

Since switch to the Pixel, it’s been like a big exhale — aaaaaah. It just feels right.

  • It has a very sharp screen, but not as big as the Note.
  • It’s waterproof, but to a slightly lesser amount.
  • It has a solid amount of RAM, but not as much as the Note.
  • It doesn’t have SD card storage.
  • It doesn’t have wireless charging.
  • It doesn’t have an S Pen.
  • It has larger bezels than the Note 8 and the iPhone X.

Of all of those, the lack of wireless charging is really the only bummer. They use metal for much of the case of the phone, which makes it lighter and more durable, but makes wireless charging impossible. It’s going to be very interesting to see what they do next year because while I love the feel of this phone, they really need to include wireless charging next year.

Despite those downsides, there are a few big advantages:

  • It feels amazing in the hand. The larger bezels don’t look sexy, but they make using the phone much easier.
  • It has the highest rated mobile phone camera ever. Even iPhone-loving friends admit that this camera blows away the iPhone.
  • It’s pure Android with no extra bloat, so it’s screaming fast.
  • It gets fun new things from Google before any other phone. As of now, it’s the only phone with Google Lens (to identify photos), “Now Playing” on your lock screen (to tell you what songs are playing around you) and AR stickers to put some augmented reality features in your camera. Those will come to other phones soon enough, but it’s nice to be able to play with those features already.

They both win – but I’m sticking with the Pixel

As I said at the top, they’re both great phones. If you love Android, you’ll love either of these phones. The Pixel isn’t nearly as exciting as the Note, but it just works. It’s fast, smooth, easy to hold and takes amazing photos. For the next 8-10 months, it’s likely the phone I’ll stick with. When Fall 2018 rolls around, I’ll do this comparison all over again!

What is your phone of choice these days?

The hearing impaired scam

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 5 minutesWe got hit with a fairly well-known scam, but I followed it through (for a while) to get some fodder for the blog so that hopefully this post will come up if people get a similar email and wonder if it’s a scam or not.

Emails like this are a scam 100% of the time. Let’s start with my first email from “Josh”:

Good Morning, My name is Josh Johnson, I’m hearing impaired, I wanna know if you can handle website design for a new company and also if you do you accept credit cards ?? kindly get back to me ASAP so i can send you the job details.

Word-for-word scam. I didn’t think he’d write back, but I went for it and he did! Over the course of a few days, here’s how the scam unfolded (my words in bold, Josh in italics).

Sure! What do you have going on?

—–

Thanks for your swift response

Here is the job details

i have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located in GA and the company  is based on importing and exporting of Office Equipment  such as Printer , Scanners,Laminating Machines and Dictation Machinesso i need a best of the best layout design for it. Can you handle that for me ?. so i need you to check out this site but i need something more perfect than thisif its possible .govliquidation.com..  . the site would only be informational, so i need you to give me an estimate. And i will need you to understand that i wont be able to pay with Paypal and Square ,my account was compromised with those two merchants and my money got stolen ..
I want the same number of pages with the example site i gave you tocheck excluding videos and blogs.
2. I want only English language
3. I don’t have a domain yet but i want the domain name as
mayannaofficeequipment.com
4. you will be updating the site for me.
5. i will be proving the images, logos and content for the site.
6. i want the site up and running before ending of next month.
7. My budget is $4000 to $8000

If this was a real request for a proposal, we’d have a lot more questions. In the interest of stringing him along, but still sounding interested, I kept it pretty simple:

That site you sent (govliquidation.com) has a LOT of pages on it. Will you be wanting that many pages on your site? Will you be writing them all?

Your budget and timeline are tight, but we might be able to make it happen.

—–

Yes,so can i have the total estimate now

Of course not (we need to know much more), but let’s go with it. I know his “budget”, so I’ll pick a number near the high end of it:

Cool. If you can do all of that, the total would be $6800.

—–

Thanks for your response, i am okay with the estimate and i wanna proceed so i will be depositing $3000 using credit card so work can commence ASAP,i understand the content for this site would be needed as for the job to commence so regarding the content i will need a little favor from you.

Wow, that was the easiest sale ever! However, here comes the “favor” he’ll need. I wonder what it might be…

What kind of favor will you need?

—–

The reason i need this favor from you is because the consultant does not have the facility to charge credit cards and i also am presently in the hospital for surgery so i will be glad if you can help me out with this favor,The favor i need from you is.I would give you my card info’s to charge for $7000,so $3000 would be a deposit payment for my website design and the remaining $4000 you would help me send it to the project consultant that has the text content and the logo for my website so once he has the $4000 he would send the text content and logo needed for my website to you also the funds would be sent to him via cash deposit into his account, sending of funds would be after funds clears into your account ,So i will be looking forward to read back from you.

This is the core of the scam. The scammer typically has a stolen credit card. They’ll send me the $7000, then I’ll send off the $4000 to the “project consultant”. Not long after, the charge will be disputed and I’ll lose the $7000, but I’ll be out the $4000 that I sent.

So I played dumb. Why not just set up the consultant with a way to accept the payment directly from Josh?

No worries. I can help him set up a Stripe account so he can take the payment directly. What’s his email address?

—–

Good morning,he only accept cash so can i have the grand total cost together now.

Ahh, cash only. It won’t really be cash, but a form of payment that I can never get back. Josh initially said he was in Georgia (like us), so I’ll play like I need to meet the guy to give him the cash.

Does he live in Georgia? Where?

I need to know if he’ll be coming to me to get the cash, or if I need to drive somewhere to meet him.

The total to start will be $7000.

—–

No,he lived in New York,you charge my credit card thru and wait till funds cleared into your bank account,you will send him the funds too him via CASH DEPOSIT.Are you ready for my card info

Also,can i have your cell phone number now

—–

That’s weird. Why can’t you just CASH DEPOSIT directly to him?

That scared Josh off, and he disappeared for a day. I had to get him back:

Josh – Just checking in again. Is there any way to deposit to him, or does it need to go through us?

—–

It`s greatly appreciated if you can handle everything for me. Much as i would have really loved to speak with you directly, i can`t for now as am in the hospital undergoing tests for my forthcoming surgeries that will be coming up in the next few days to correct my hearing problem and replace my knee cap just as i informed you in my previous text,so i want you too handle everything for me.

His hospital visit sounds serious. Needs to fix his hearing problem and a kneecap…

Yes,you get funds send too me via Cash Deposit or Wire Transfer so what is the name of your credit card processor or the name of you credit card merchant (Clover or FirstData),what is the name..

—–

Clover.

Do you need my password?

What hospital are you in? In Atlanta somewhere?

We usually use Stripe, but Clover sounds good. I also offered to send him my password, just to see what he’d say. He ignored it.

Okay,am in intensive care and are you ready for my info too charge it for $7000 now and how many days will the funds will be available in your bank account if you charge my card thru now.

Related: How to get obtaining long term disability benefits with Ortiz Law Firm?—–

They’re letting you use a computer while you’re in intensive care?

He eventually responded and wanted to move the conversation to text message. I went there with him, and we traded text messages for a while. He ultimately gave me two different credit card numbers to try (after I told him the first was declined) and we eventually admitted we knew what was up.

As he mentioned early on, he wanted to use mayannaofficeequipment.com. So, we purchased that domain and it redirects back to this very post!

Here’s a screenshot of our full text conversation if you’d like to see it.

This scam often appears word-for-word as you saw in the initial email, but can vary from time to time. The hearing impaired angle is likely a two-fold approach; partly to gain some sympathy, but also so they can avoid talking on the phone.

If you ever feel like something seems suspicious (or too good to be true), it probably is. A quick Google search will typically reveal that it is within seconds.

Has anyone ever tried to pull a scam like this on you?

My favorite smart watch right now is… Pebble?

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 3 minutesI should have seen this coming after my blog post about Android Wear 2.0 back in February, but I’m in love with my “new” old Pebble watch. As I mentioned back then, I really just wanted a dumb smartwatch — so I’d want it to send me some notifications, maybe let me archive some emails, and that’s about it. If it’s any more involved than that, my phone is literally already on my body or on my desk.

Android Wear vs Apple Watch

The promise of Android Wear was great — a simple interface to get notifications from your watch. Apple went the other way, with lots of apps and bells and whistles. For me, Android Wear seems like a much better solution.

The first version of Android Wear was great, though a bit buggy. With Android Wear 2, I had hoped for a smoother experience, but instead they started chasing Apple and added a bunch more features that I really don’t want — without fixing the bugs.

Pebble smart watchBack to Pebble

I can’t remember what drew me to dig the old Pebble out of the closet, but that’s what I did a few weeks ago. The battery was long dead, and then it needed some software updates, but when I got it going I was amazed — it was perfect.

The notifications are instant. I can archive Gmail from my phone. I can offer simple replies to text messages. I can decline phone calls. And that’s about it. There’s not a bunch of apps from my phone trying to weasel their way on. There is a Pebble app store, but I’m essentially avoiding; it’s far less-stocked than the similar stores for Android Wear and Apple Watch, but my goal here is to avoid that stuff.

Pebble is dying

That said, the future is very grim for Pebble. They were acquired by Fitbit in late 2016, and have since stopped production on all of the Pebble watches. You can still buy them on Amazon, and the prices are great. I’m thinking the Pebble 2 se is the best bet, and it’s only $55.

I was hopeful that Pebble and Fitbit might do something awesome together, and perhaps eventually they will, but the Fitbit Ionic is the first device that has come from their pairing, and it’s exactly what I’m trying to escape. It looks great and has a ton of features — but it has a ton of features.

Because Pebble is essentially dead, they’re not promising long-term support for their old watches. I believe they’re promising support through the end of 2017, but that’s it. They’ll presumably leave the app online for a while, but future updates to Android will eventually make it worthless. I hope Android Wear gets their act together by then, or something else compelling comes along.

rebble.io

In theory, I might be saved by the rebble project. It’s a team of developers working to build alternate firmware for Pebble devices to keep them going longer. However, that project seems quite stagnant and likely won’t be a long-term solution.

My Moto 360 is a great-looking watch (certainly better looking than the Pebble), so perhaps I’ll go back to it eventually. For now, though, I’m rocking the old Pebble and loving every minute of it.

Go Ahead, Pick My Brain

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 8 minutesIn late 2009, I got an email from an acquaintance from church named Barry. It was your typical “can I pick your brain” email, which I was happy to respond to. Here’s what he asked:

“I would like to meet for coffee sometime to ask some advice on internet marketing. I am looking into a few different areas and would be interested in talking.”

I agreed, and the coffee went just as you’d expected. We enjoyed each other’s company, I gave away a bunch of free advice, and he caused me to rethink a few things. We met a few more times over the coming years, but he never, ever hired us — and that’s perfectly fine.

Two years after that initial meeting, his wife’s company needed a lot of help with their website and marketing materials. Guess who she called?  Five years later, they’ve spent nearly $100,000 dollars with us, and they are one of our favorite clients to work with.

I was already in favor of meeting with people when they asked, and this series of events made me sure it was the right perspective. I figure the worst that could come out of it is a pleasant conversation about a topic I love. How can that be bad?

Brain picking is expensive

The first argument you hear to allowing people to pick your brain is that you’re giving away valuable information — and they’re absolutely right!

For example, Forbes contributor Adrienne Graham said:

“My brain costs money to maintain. There’s training, classes to attend, reading (I have to buy books), gaining certifications, costs of memberships so I can network, attending conferences and mastering my skills that all cost me money.”

All of that is true. I spend a tremendous amount of time and energy reading books and blogs, listening to (and publishing) podcasts, attending conferences, and doing whatever I can to improve my knowledge and skills. That effort isn’t free.

However, what Adrienne and others are concerned about isn’t really their brainpower. They say it is, but these are the same people that write hundreds of blog posts, appear as guests on podcasts, and give away information through their social channels all day long. It’s the time and scale that scares them off.

When you write a blog post or join in on a podcast, you’re hoping to reach a wide audience. You might be hoping to reach thousands, maybe hundreds, even just dozens. When you meet someone for coffee, though, you only reach one or two at a time. People like Adrienne see that as a downside, but I see it as an amazing opportunity.

Where do clients come from?

Years ago, I had an idea to create a mind map of all of our clients, so I could track how I got to know each of them. It took a while to build the initial map, but following the trail to some of them is very interesting. For example, when we built the website for New Hope Enterprises, I looked back to see how I met Angele, their Executive Director at the time. It turns out I met her through Beth, who I met through Harrison, who I met through Betsy, who I met through Derrick. The overall map looks something like this (names blocked out here for privacy):

I have a task to update the map every three months or so, so it doesn’t get too far out of date. For the technically curious, I use a product called MindMeister to build it, but any mind-mapping tool would do the job.

Tony

One of my favorite brain-pickers is a guy named Tony. Roughly once a year, we get together for lunch so he can pick my brain. The truth is, I pick his brain right back and we both finish lunch learning more than we started with.

Further, Tony is another person that has never hired us for anything, but has lead to some great connections. At GreenMellen we’re in the final stages of building a huge eCommerce site right now, and I can follow the trail of that job all the way back to a lunch with Tony four years ago.

Keeping up with the mind map is fun and interesting, but being able to trace clients back like that is essential. I can probably trace $75,000 worth of work back to Tony’s branch of the tree, just from grabbing lunch with him every year or so.

Being famous would make this tough

There is a big exception to all of this — if you’re very well-known, the rules change a bit. Thankfully, this is not a problem for me. 🙂 A guy like Mark Cuban simply couldn’t meet with everyone that just wants to pick his brain, because that would literally be all he does.

It’s cases like that which lead to tweets like this:

“New rule: If your email starts off with “I want to pick your brain,” my reply starts off with “at $400 per hour.”

The author of that tweet was Peter Shankman, who started and ran the very popular Help A Reporter Out (HARO) email list. Peter is undoubtedly very busy, and this response makes sense.

The problem is with those that he influences. In Peter’s own words:

“I immediately got about 100 or so retweets saying “right on!” or “Hell yes!” or similar.”

For most of those 100 or so people, allowing their brain to be picked would be a great thing to do.

Hearing…

You’ve heard me talk about some monetary business benefits of having my brain picked, but there are other reasons that go much deeper than that. You’ll notice that all of the following sections begin with the word “hearing”. While you’re there to let them pick your brain, your ability to listen and learn is where you can gain the most.

Of course, this applies to them as well. I met with a woman named Marion about a year ago, as she had a lot of issues with her business and wanted my insight. As she spoke, I had some good suggestions for her, but held my tongue until she took a breath. As time wound down, she continued to talk ceaselessly, and she never had a chance to hear how our company overcame similar struggles.

In the end, it gave me some things to think about regarding some of her successes and failures, but she ultimately got no real help from me.

Here’s what to hear:

Hearing new ideas

This is probably the most common thing I gain from pick your brain sessions. As people tell me about their current struggles and issues, it always brings to light new ideas.

I had a pick your brain lunch with Michele and Sean a few weeks ago and one of their issues was that they didn’t think Basecamp was the best bet for tracking work at their business. I’m not a big fan of Basecamp, so I was eager to tell them all of the better platforms they could use (we love Asana, but I thought Teamwork might be better for them). However, after discussing the pros and cons with them for a while, we determined that Basecamp was indeed their best bet, and I left with a greater appreciation for situations where Basecamp might work well.

Sometimes the ideas that I hear aren’t what’s being said to me, but help me solve a different issue entirely. Back in 2005, I was obsessed with Google Earth and had built a fairly popular fan site for it (it’s still online, but in serious disrepair), and I was trying to figure out how to build a war-style game inside of Google Earth. I was close, but couldn’t figure out one important piece of the interaction. During lunch with someone, we got talking about htaccess files and rewriting URLs (so that pages like “page.php?id=7” appear more friendly like “/about-us/” instead), and that inspired the solution to my Google Earth war problem! It was a completely unrelated conversation, but solved a big problem I couldn’t get past.

Years ago I gave away the application to a bunch of energetic fans of the game (it was a lot to keep up with) and they still have it running at gewar.net.

Hearing about failures

Owning an agency is scary. When you’re a freelancer, you need to worry about your well-being and supporting your family, which is a lot to take on already. Now that we’re a team of seven, I have to worry about the well-being of the entire team, and their families. It can be nerve-wracking!

As a result, I read and listen to a ton about running an agency. In fact, one of my favorite things to learn about is how companies grow, the struggles they’ve had, and how they overcame (or not) those struggles.

When someone is picking my brain, they often have a problem they’re trying to overcome. While I’m hopeful that I can assist in them finding a solution, the process of working through that problem makes me stronger as well. Most people I meet with aren’t just random people off the street; it’s people I already know, so therefore it’s likely that I’ll continue to see them at events or follow them on Twitter or otherwise keep up with their lives. Watching their issue come to a resolution, whether for better or worse, teaches me another lesson that I can apply in my own business and when I’m talking with others in the future.

Hearing yourself

It’s often said that teaching is the best way to learn. I can vouch for that, as I’ve led dozens of Meetup sessions in our area and every one of them has been a great learning experience. The interaction and Q&A with the attendees is certainly a big part of it, but preparing for each one is where the knowledge really pours in.

Before each presentation, I spend quite a bit of time preparing my slides, making notes and researching what I want to talk about. When I’m meeting someone for coffee, it’s a bit of the same thing (though to a lesser extent). I refresh myself on what they want to talk about, and often times find a new angle to discuss before we even start.

Hearing them out

Stronger relationships make a business flourish. Just sitting down and talking to someone for 30 minutes can help strengthen your relationship will them and make life better for both you. Whether they need to vent some frustration, or just hang out and talk about life for a bit, it all helps to strengthen those bonds.

As I said at the beginning, the worst that could come out of it is a pleasant conversation about a topic I love. How can that be bad?

The rules

All of that said, I have a few soft rules that I try to follow to keep from spending all of my time in coffee shops:

Know me

As a general rule, I don’t tend to let just anyone come along and pick my brain — there needs to be some kind of connection first. Between all of the Meetups and other local events that I attend, most pick my brain sessions come out of one of those. The other source is “you need to talk to my friend, because they’re having a struggle with their business that you can help them with“. That’s awesome too. Having some kind of initial connection, either from a past meeting or a referral, makes me feel much better about getting my brain picked.

Of course, if we’ve never met and you want to chat about how we can maybe build a new website for your business, that’s always ok. 🙂

Come to me

To the extent possible, I try to have people come to me to meet. There are a few coffee shops within a two minute walk from our studio, so it makes it easier to squeeze in those kinds of chats if I don’t have to carve out travel time on both sides of the meeting.

I certainly travel to a variety of meetings as needed, but the more I can keep them close to the office, the more I’m able to squeeze them into my schedule.

Clients come first

Despite my love for pick your brain coffee sessions, clients always come first. There are times when I go a few weeks without one of these meetings because we’re so busy, or need to reschedule with relatively little notice due to a client emergency. People understand — clients always come first.

You have expertise

Something we try to instill in people at our Meetup and other events is that everyone has expertise. People come to me because of my experience in building a small company or for what I know about WordPress, but everyone is an expert at something.

That means that you are an expert at something, and people could learn from you. Let them pick your brain – I promise it’s worth it.

My new morning routine

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 4 minutesA few weeks ago I was inspired by an episode of the Contactually podcast to work on setting a more focused morning routine. As I began working on building a good routine, Adam Walker talked about a great app during this episode of the Tech Talk Y’all podcast called “Morning Routine”. That app is only available on iOS

buy stromectol online stromectol online

(how is that possible in 2017?), which was unfortunate. However, after some digging I found an app called Tinygain (available on both iOS and Android) that does essentially the same thing but with some nice added features.

I’ve been test driving and tweaking my morning routine in preparation for today, the first day of school for my two girls (yes, it’s July 31 and it’s the first day of school here in Georgia). While I’ll continue to adjust as time goes on, it’s come together nicely and takes roughly 40 minutes as I start my day.

I still don’t drink coffee in the morning, so I just get up, grab a glass of water, and get to work.

Email (2 min)

I intentionally keep this short, but I do a quick glance to make sure there are no fires to put out. Since I typically go to bed with an empty inbox, there’s usually only a handful of junk in there by the morning. I delete the junk, save other tasks for later, and then I can attack the rest of the routine without having the “what if there’s an emergency email?” in the back of my mind.

Tinygain

Next, I fire up Tinygain. It walks me through the rest of the routine with the pieces I’ve set up in there.

Morning power questions (2 min)

Tinygain has a lot of “routines” available that you can add, and “morning power questions” is a good one to help start the day. It just walks through a few simple questions so you can begin to frame your day:

  1. What do I have to look forward to today?
  2. What’s absolutely perfect about my life?
  3. How can I make today absolutely awesome?
  4. What is the best thing that could happen today?

I may adjust the questions a bit over time, but that’s how they came and it’s a solid way to start.

The five minute morning journal (4 min)

Next is another pre-built routine called “the five minute morning journal”. It asks somewhat similar questions, but encourages you to write them down. I use journey.cloud to store them, but you could use any app or even just a pen and paper.

  1. Write down three things you are grateful for.
  2. Write down three things that would make today great.
  3. Describe how well you slept last night. If you remember any dreams, write them down.
  4. What is the one thing you want to accomplish today?
  5. Write whatever is on your mind right now.

My custom routine

Lastly I dig into my custom routine that I built into Tinygain. Most are simple slides, but I have a timer on one of them.

Feedly (4 min)

I go through my Feedly, save items to read for later, and just work it down to zero. Feedly tends to stay fairly quiet overnight (but crazy during the day), so I like to make sure I’m at a fresh start.

Bible (8 min)

I’m working through a one-year Bible, so each day is roughly a 8-10 minute read. Each day is a passage from the Old Testament, the New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs.

Brainscape (10 min)

Studying Brainscape can be open-ended, so I set a 10 minute timer on it in Tinygain. I try to study more throughout the day/evening as time allows, but this makes sure that I at least get a little time in there in case the day gets crazy.

I’ve also discovered that the Brainscape iOS app has some new features that aren’t yet in the web version or on Android. One is called “smart study” (to go through all of your subjects at once) and the other is called “random mix” to go through all of the decks within a given subject at once. They’re killer features, and should be coming to Android and the web later this year. In the meantime, I’ve taken over an old iPod Touch from my daughter (she has an iPhone now, so she’ll be ok) and I’ve wiped everything from it except for Brainscape. It works quite well.

Because Brainscape syncs between devices, I can use that iPod Touch for the morning session, but still use my Pixel or the Brainscape website to study at other points during the day.

Cloze (3 min)

Next I visit Cloze to see who it thinks I need to get in touch with today. It usually gives me 2-4 people, and I often only choose to reach out to one of them with a quick email.

Birthdays / Special wishes (3 min)

I hit the Facebook birthday list and the LinkedIn notifications and reach out to a few people. I don’t necessarily reach out through those platforms (“happy birthday” wishes on Facebook get buried), but it’s a good place to see who is celebrating today.

High fives (4 min)

The last piece is what the Contactually podcast called “high fives”. The speaker said he hits his major social channels and tries to like/comment on five things on each. I don’t use the rule of five, but I try to go to my Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn feeds and interact with a few folks.

As with other items on this list, I try to do this a bit throughout the day, but some days get hectic and I don’t get back, so this ensures that I’ll at least talk to a few people on there.

That’s it!

It’s a fairly long list, but Tinygain helps me to walk through it fairly quickly. After this is breakfast with the family, typically a short workout, then shower and off to work.

Do you have a set morning routine? What am I missing from mine?

Anki vs Brainscape

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 4 minutesI’ve been a heavy user of Anki for a few years now, and it’s changed my life quite a bit. This post from late 2016 explains it quite well

, and you should probably read that first if you’re not familiar with Anki and these kinds of learning systems.

Earlier this year I dug into Tinycards, but I was fairly unimpressed and Anki was still tops for me. However, over the past few weeks I’ve been playing with Brainscape quite a bit and now I’m making the switch away from Anki.

They’re very similar systems; in both cases you can download or create your own decks (including text, images, sound, etc), and then review the flashcards (with varying algorithmic “spaced repetition systems”) to begin to learn them.

Why switch?

It was a tough decision to switch over, as there are some things I prefer with Anki. In particular, while Brainscape’s algorithm is great for many kinds of learning (here is a bit about their algorithm, and this white paper goes very deep into it), Anki’s is better for others. I kind of wish I could combine the two systems; I even considered using both side-by-side for different kinds of content, but decided that was overkill.

Another thing I like about Anki is the tagging system it uses. I can have one card with multiple tags, so I can view it in different scenarios (such as people that I know from our #meetup, but also might be a #client). Brainscape forces each card into their own deck, so I’ve had to decide where to put certain cards.

Lastly, Anki wins on price. It’s free for most systems (and $25 on iOS), whereas Brainscape pricing goes from $9.99/mo up to $79.99 for lifetime. For me it’s a pretty easy call to just spend the $80 and have it forever, and their pricing is certainly affordable, but Anki is certainly lower priced.

Where Brainscape wins

All of the above items aside, I’ve found Brainscape to be a better solution for me, for reasons such as:

Look and feel

Anki works well, and that’s the most important thing, but Brainscape just feels so much better. Anki feels like Windows 98, whereas Brainscape feels like a modern app.

Sharing

This was a big one for me. While you can share decks in Anki, you’re really just giving a copy to someone. If you make changes, they don’t see them. With Brainscape, you can truly share decks and continue to refine them. For us, this means we can have a few GreenMellen-focused decks (clients, messaging, etc) and always be tweaking them for the team.

Available decks

While Anki has a large collection of user-generated decks, Brainscape seems to have many more. Further, because Brainscape is a paid service they’re able to create quite a few “official” decks that are nicely curated. In particular, their knowledge rehab set (consisting of 33 decks and 2099 cards) is an awesome way to improve your general knowledge. Below are some of their available subjects; some are available to everyone, and some are locked to premium users only. Once you’re a premium user, though, every deck is available (no one-off purchases required):

Open-ended study

I went back and forth on which method I prefer on this, and there are advantages to each, but I’m liking Brainscape’s open-ended study method more than Anki’s strict repetition system.

  • With Anki, you have a set number of cards to review each day, based on the calculated “spaced repetition” that you need to see them with. I kind of liked knowing I needed to review x cards each day, as it gave me a goal. However, studying extra was kind of a pain and seemed to be discouraged by the app.
  • With Brainscape, it’s more open-ended. You’re always trying to get to 100% “mastery” of each subject, but that’s it. If you want to study for 10 minutes or three hours, that’s up to you. You can see in the screenshot below some of my various subjects on the left (with the gray bar showing mastery of each) and then the mastery level of each deck inside of “Knowledge Rehab” in the center.

My only wish is that Brainscape would add some kind of “decay” feature, or something to slowly lower mastery over time. If I study a subject hard and get 100% mastery, that’s great. A year from now, though, I certainly will have forgotten parts of it. Brainscape says you should simply review subjects periodically, but something that automatically slowly diminishes the mastery score over time would really help.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, you can’t go wrong with either. I’m on board with Brainscape now, and I’m hoping to drag some GreenMellen colleagues with me. If you prefer Anki, I can totally see that too.

If you’re wanting to dig into Brainscape, here are a few video tutorials on Brainscape to get you started.

Do you use a system like Brainscape or Anki? Which system works best for you?

Contactually vs Cloze

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 4 minutesI’ve been using Contactually for a few years now, and it’s a great system. However, I recently made the switch to Cloze and I’m quite pleased with it. In looking for what I need in my system right now, these two are the only ones that were serious contenders and I’ll explain why in a minute.

Alongside of Cloze, I’m also using two other systems. The first is FullContact, which I use to simply manage my contact list, explained here:

Getting all of those contacts organized

We also use ActiveCampaign for our inbound marketing efforts over at GreenMellen. I also used to use Pipedrive to help manage our sales pipeline, but I’m using Cloze for that now as well.

It was actually the integration of the sales pipeline that got me re-interested in Cloze (I had looked at it a while ago), and some features of it are why I moved over.

Proactive Notifications

Before I get into that, though, I want to explain why I said that Cloze and Contactually were the only two “serious contenders” for me. The answer is proactive notifications.

Most CRM systems do a great job of reminding you to follow up with people, but only after you set those reminders yourself. That’s nice and all, but I already have reminder systems (primarily Asana and Google Keep

). Cloze and Contactually go further. Both systems keep a close eye on your email history, and automatically remind you to reach out to certain contacts that you haven’t spoken to in a while. They each handle that process a bit differently, but the end result is similar — each day they’ll show you a handful of people that you should reach back out to, with some info about why. For example, I see this reminder is coming up next week in Cloze:

It’s telling me that I usually talk to Forrest every 36 days, and it’s about time again. I can choose to respond, to defer that notice for a few days, or just skip it completely. This feature is the key to Cloze and Contactually.

Both do it largely by having you group your contacts (You tell it that person x is a client, y is a friend, z is a coworker, etc) and they choose how often you’d like to handle each.

  • Contactually does a bit better job of forcing this with their “bucket” system and the “bucket game“.
  • Cloze, on the other hand, makes it a bit trickier to organize contacts into groups but will still send you proactive notifications even if a client isn’t sorted correctly (such as Forrest above, who I haven’t yet organized). With Contactually, if they’re not in a bucket they’ll never come up in a notification.

Managing the pipeline

I mentioned that I recently left Pipedrive as well. Pipedrive is a kanban-style deal management system, and it works great. You set up columns for your sales process (or other workflows) and then slowly drag leads from left to right as they go through your process. It feels similar to Trello for anyone that uses it. Here’s a screenshot of Pipedrive:

Pipedrive’s system works great, and it’s very affordable, starting at just $10/mo. However, it’s kind of an island — it does great with that workflow, but really doesn’t do much else. I started digging into what Cloze and Contactually could do for this piece of the puzzle, and I liked what I saw.

Proactive pipeline notifications

If you use them for your deal management, Cloze and Contactually both offer proactive pipeline notifications. You set a duration for each step of your sales process (for example, 5 days for your “waiting on client to send questionnaire” section), and they’ll bubble up those people if they’re still in the same column after the time has elapsed. That is pretty awesome, but then I had to look closer at how each system works to see if they’d fit my needs.

  • Contactually feels more like Pipedrive, and I like it. That kanban-style flow works great, and Contactually’s is solid. However, they’re missing a major piece, and it’s small item; you can’t manually adjust the dates on your sales deals. I like to go into systems like these and backfill our previous deals (so we can see history, trends, etc) and Contactually simply can’t do that.
  • Cloze, on the other hand, can do that. Their system is more filtered-list style instead of kanban, which I don’t like as well, but it has great fine-tuning on the dates of the deals.

Cloze wins

In the end, it was two things that made me choose Cloze over Contactually:

  1. The date options for backfilled sales deals.
  2. The monthly price. Paid month-to-month, with the features I need, Contactually is $69/mo and Cloze is $19.99/mo.

Both are excellent systems. I’ve had great success with Contactually over the years, and it’s certainly worth checking them out. However, for what I need right now it seems that Cloze is the better fit.

What do you use to help stay on top of your contacts?