Reading Time: < 1 minIn an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week. Mon, October 7: Outcome biasUsing an outcome to justify whether a decision is good or bad is something behavioral scientists call “outcome bias”, and it’s a bad way to […]
Self-education beats formal education
Reading Time: < 1 minFormal education is essential. Without understanding the basics (with “the basics” meaning “years of schooling”), you have no foundation on which to grow further. However, the further growth is where the real value lies. In his book “Selling in a Post-Trust World“, author Larry Levine shares a simple quote from Jim Rohn that says: “Formal […]
A free market means the customer is always right
Reading Time: 2 minI’ve always been a fan of the phrase “the customer is always right” as long as you put the caveat “…in matters of taste” at the end of it. I certainly give no credit to rude or forceful people that use “the customer is always right” to try to get their way, but people can […]
What do you do with those pictures of slides?
Reading Time: 2 minPart of our team just spent a few days at the Digital Summit conference here in Atlanta, and it was excellent. We picked up some great tips and ideas that we’ve already started to use, and I’m sure more will come out as we unpack further. My thought for today is “what does unpacking really […]
Chesterton’s Fence
Reading Time: 2 minWhenever someone is starting a new job, I always advise them to take it slow at the beginning. Understand the current setup, see how things work, and then later begin to make suggestions. With our newest hire at GreenMellen, I told her exactly that. She’s coming from another agency, and we’re very excited to learn […]
Stewardship, not ownership
Reading Time: < 1 minKevin Paul Scott has a fantastic description of the idea of “stewardship” versus that of “ownership”. In his book “Return on Inspiration“, he says: “Stewards take care of things for other people; owners look out for their own interests. When we look at companies through this lens, we see that some owners act more like […]
Outcome bias
Reading Time: < 1 minIf you’ve read some of my posts over the last few years, you’ve probably seen some of my fascination (and struggle) with the idea of separating decisions from outcomes. Brent Menswar’s book “Black Sheep” gives a simple name to it: outcome bias. Using an outcome to justify whether a decision is good or bad is […]
The Sunday Summary: Marking automation, hopeful AI, and bad ways to go viral
Reading Time: 1 minIn an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week. Mon, September 30: Reflecting on experiencesJohn Dewey, American philosopher, educator, and cofounder of the philosophical movement known as pragmatism, once said, “We do not learn from experiences, we learn […]
Hatred for outgroups is the best way to go viral on social media
Reading Time: < 1 minI have a great tip for you today to help you go viral more often on social media: show a lot of hate. While we all say that we want to more uplifting content on social media, hate spreads much more quickly. I know you’ve all seen it, often from very “nice” people online that […]
Satisfying your customers isn’t nearly enough
Reading Time: 2 minSatisfying your customers is a good thing, and it absolutely beats the alternative. In most environments, though, “satisfying” falls far short of where you need to be. In the book “Raving Fans“, the authors argue for this very point: Blanchard and Bowles argue that there’s a clear distinction between satisfying your customers and exceeding the […]