Reading Time: < 1 minIt’s getting increasingly difficult to track how users are finding your website, but there is one thing I can guarantee — users with disabilities are visiting your site, and you should be prepared to serve them accordingly. I was talking with a (now former) client a few years ago, urging her to do more work […]
Technology
Using Sectograph to visualize my day
Reading Time: 2 minA few weeks ago I stumbled upon this article by Anthony Spadafora on Tom’s Guide, where he explained how he’s using a smart display alongside his main desktop computer. That led me down a trail of various similar ideas, and I ended up using my Pixel Tablet in a similar way. Here is a quick […]
The WordPress drama shows why WordPress remains the best choice
Reading Time: 2 minOver the last few months, the WordPress community has been a bit of a mess. The short version of the “mess” is that Matt Mullenweg (the man behind WordPress) is not happy with WP Engine (a major host of WordPress sites) and it’s causing a lot of fallout. My friend Aaron has a great timeline […]
When preventing the Osborne Effect hurts
Reading Time: 2 minBack in 1983, the Osborne Computer was selling relatively well when the founder of the company announced plans for the next version of the machine that would be coming out in the next year or so. The new one would be much better, so people stopped buying the current version and the company went bankrupt […]
The hopeful side of AI
Reading Time: 2 minThere is a lot coming because of AI, and much of is not good. There’s not a ton of awful things to expect, but a lot of just… yuck. Like I shared yesterday, I suspect we’ll see more spam email, more AI-powered chatbots, more automated social posts, and just a lot of “we don’t need […]
Marketing automation works best when it’s backed by humans
Reading Time: 2 minIf you’ve followed my writing for very long, you know I’m not a big fan of automated emails. There are cases where they are done correctly and can be valuable, but the most common implementation seems to be “cool, let’s blast stuff out!”. If you’re going to automate, I suggest two main rules: It seems […]
Multitaskers are the worst at multitasking
Reading Time: 2 minA lot of what I write on here is about me, and this post is a great example of that. While I know that true multitasking is a myth, it’s still something I sometimes spend too much time trying to streamline. In his book “Lost and Founder“, Rand Fishkin shares this: David Strayer, professor at […]
You can escape the algorithms, but you need to work for it
Reading Time: 2 minWe all hear many people complaining about “the algorithms” on social media, and it’s often a legit complaint. At best, the algorithms show us a bunch of stuff we didn’t ask for. As worst, they could be affecting political outcomes. Part of the problem is the algorithms themselves, but the other part is our overall […]
Shortform for long books
Reading Time: 2 minI’ve been using Blinkist for some book summaries for a few years now, and it’s great! However, I’m noticing a growing problem in the gap between long books and Blinkist, in that the “Blinks” just aren’t long enough to really share the heart of the book. Blinkist and most related platforms are proud of the […]
What the web is versus what we want it to be
Reading Time: 2 minIn recently listening to a podcast from Gary Vaynerchuk, I realized how differently him and I see the world. While I respect what he does, and I follow a lot of his advice, it comes from a different direction. In particular, Gary provides a ton of great ideas on how to generate increasingly large amounts […]