Our standards are rising

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It’s easy to think that the world is falling apart, and while there are certainly many things we need to improve, things are really going pretty well. Crime is down, medical care is always improving, and even things like sex trafficking are far less pervasive than we’re led to believe.

The problem is our standards. Crime shouldn’t exist, medical care should be better, and sex trafficking is horrific at any scale. It just feels like things should be better than they are, even if they’re better now than they’ve ever been.

In his book “Enlightenment Now“, author Steven Pinker puts it like this:

“When I grew up, bullying was considered a natural part of boyhood. It would have strained belief to think that someday the president of the United States would deliver a speech about its evils, as Barack Obama did in 2011. As we care about more of humanity, we’re apt to mistake the harms around us for signs of how low the world has sunk rather than how high our standards have risen.”

There are a lot of things in this world that need to be fixed, because our standards continue to rise. This is a healthy cycle of standards chasing improvements, and it’s one that should always keep pressing onward.

The Sunday Summary: Sunk costs, meta work, and attention spans aren’t really getting shorter

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In 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, July 22: Movie tickets are sunk costs
“If you purchase a movie ticket, you have the ability to occupy a seat in the theater, but you don’t have to if a better opportunity presents itself. When you purchase the ticket, all you’re purchasing is the right to exercise the option to see the movie at the time specified—nothing more.”

Tue, July 23: Benjamin Franklin’s self-doubt led to the signing of the Constitution
On September 17, 1787, Benjamin Franklin gave a speech at the Constitutional Convention which led to the signing of the Constitution. Franklin wasn’t convinced that the document was perfect, but he also knew that maybe he was wrong and he encouraged everyone to move forward.

Wed, July 24: Is the meta work worth it?
One of the big challenges of productivity is determining what meta work (the work around your work) is worth your time.

Thu, July 25: The balance between lift and attribution
“They have to understand when you provide attribution, you miss almost every organic channel, every word-of-mouth-channel, almost every social engagement channel that’s organic, and almost every channel that doesn’t directly drive a link that passes a referral string.”

Fri, July 26: Attention spans aren’t getting shorter
“People are binge watching eight episodes of Netflix for seven hours on a Saturday afternoon. And then people are not watching a six second video after one second because it’s a piece of crap.”

Sat, July 27: Make decisions before circumstances force them to be made
“A good position allows you to think clearly rather than be forced by circumstances into a decision. One reason the best in the world make consistently good decisions is they rarely find themselves forced into a decision by circumstances.”

I hope you found some value in this. If you ever have questions, ideas, or disagreements regarding anything I write, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Make decisions before circumstances force them to be made

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March 2020 was a scary time to be a business owner. Things were still going well for us, but the future was very uncertain — for everyone!

Ali and I took some time that month to plot out two sets of scenarios for our business.

  1. Determining how long could we sustain the company if we lost x clients, or if recurring revenue dropped by a certain percent, or various other potential situations that COVID might cause.
  2. Setting “triggers” for various things to happen if things went very poorly. We’d dip into savings if scenario 1 hit, we’d lay off some of the team if scenario 2 hit, and a bunch of related ideas.

The plan was simply to be ready. If things went poorly business-wise because of COVID, we’d have already made the necessary decisions on how to handle the latest issue.

In his book “Clear Thinking“, author Shane Parrish offers that exact suggestion, saying:

A good position allows you to think clearly rather than be forced by circumstances into a decision. One reason the best in the world make consistently good decisions is they rarely find themselves forced into a decision by circumstances.

Our primary goal was to avoid hitting any of the trigger marks, which we were able to do. 2020 turned out to be a very solid year for us financially, so none of those actions had to be taken but it was comforting to know how we’d handle the most likely situations that could occur so we wouldn’t be “forced by circumstances into a decision”.

We can’t plan for everything that might happen, but making decisions before you’re in the middle of the circumstance gives some peace and helps insure clarity in the action that needs to be taken.

Attention spans aren’t getting shorter

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It’s popular to say that our attention spans are getting shorter (though not like a goldfish), but that may not be entirely true. Studies are mixed, but it’s not clear that they’re getting shorter.

Tools like TikTok help play into this idea, where users are fed an endless stream of very short videos to help keep themselves entertained. On the flip side, many people still read books and watch movies, both of which take a great deal of focused attention.

Gary Vaynerchuk recently put it this way (in this interview):

“People are binge watching eight episodes of Netflix for seven hours on a Saturday afternoon. And then people are not watching a six second video after one second because it’s a piece of crap.”

I think what’s really happening is that we’re more discerning about what we’re willing to spend time watching because we have so much out there. 40 years ago, you’d be more likely to watch whatever was on TV (even if it wasn’t very good) because you didn’t have a lot of other options. Now, if whatever you’re consuming doesn’t interest you, you can immediately find something else.

If people aren’t consuming your content to the extent that you’d like, it’s easy to blame short attention spans. In reality, though, Gary is likely correct that this issue is that your content is “crap” and you should spend more time making it compelling to encourage people to stick around.

The balance between lift and attribution

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I’ve shared a few times on here how precise attribution of online activities is becoming more and more difficult to track. It feels like companies are collecting every bit of information that they can about us, which is true, but it’s becoming trickier to put all of the pieces together.

Ad blockers and cookie policies are a big reason why, but there’s also just the fact that so many marketing activities simply aren’t done in ways that are trackable (private conversations online, in-person events, etc).

A recent article from Ann Gynn on the Content Marketing Institute blog suggests that we go back to tracking marketing like we did in 1985 — focus on the lift of the brand. From her article:

“To measure impact, you should follow in the footsteps of the 1980s marketer. Evaluate the before-and-after metrics overall, and don’t assign a value to each component’s contributions.“

That’s not to say that we should ignore SEO and other current marketing best practices, as those are still certainly valuable, but that we shouldn’t put as much weight into the numbers. Again, from Ann:

“Still, your brand can’t ignore search rankings as they play a role in those zero-click results and some humans still see Google, other search engines, and even generative AI tools as their go-to research sources.“

Taking it further, she quotes SparkToro CEO Rand Fishkin (among the most well-known search engine marketers in the world), who expresses the problem quite clearly:

“They have to understand when you provide attribution, you miss almost every organic channel, every word-of-mouth-channel, almost every social engagement channel that’s organic, and almost every channel that doesn’t directly drive a link that passes a referral string.”

Instead, they must recognize that measurement is the preferred method and it requires a long-range assessment of brand strength and recognition. “You’re going to look at lift, not attribution,” Rand says. “They have to buy into this new method of operating.”

There’s not an easy answer here, but the first step is to accept reality. Rand says “attribution is fully broken these days, but we’re still using it like we used to“. At GreenMellen we still track every bit of data that we can, across a variety of different tools, and I don’t see that stopping anytime soon. However, we also need to be sure we’re tracking the overall vitality of each brand so we can get a better idea of the success of the overall marketing plan.

The next few years will be very interesting, headlined by the impact that AI will be making, but we can be confident that precise attribution is never coming back and we need to work hard to find ways to track overall lift instead.

I encourage you to check out Ann’s full article, as well as the live show where she pulled some of Rand’s thoughts.

Is the meta work worth it?

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One of the big challenges of productivity is determining what meta work (the work around your work) is worth your time. For me, a big one is playing with productivity tools; while I might find some gains in new tools, I also tend to spend a lot of time tinkering with them. I internally consider this a mild form of entertainment as a way to justify it, but it’s likely not worth the time I put in.

Two other big ones stand out, and I have opposing stances on them.

Time tracking

With many creative agencies, the question of “time tracking or not” is a big one. For us, we’re going with “not”. The data gleaned from time tracking can be fantastic, but the effort of tracking that time can be a killer.

That said, I have two exceptions:

  1. Occasionally we’ll track time on a specific project just to make sure that we’re in the range that we expect. The challenge is that if we’re not in the habit of tracking, much of the time can slip through.
  2. I’ll sometimes track my time for a few days, like I shared in this example. It can be helpful to see where my time really goes.

Overall, though, I consider time tracking to be meta work that isn’t worth the effort.

Notes

This post came to mind when I saw this list of “The Top 20 Business Books” as compiled by Jason and Julie at Blumer CPAs. My initial thought was to add it to Obsidian to have as a reference for future books to read. Most of the books were already in my system (some read, some not), but there were a few new ones. All told, I spent about 15 minutes going through and adding the new ones and then marking them up with a bit more data for future sorting (author name, book length, tagline, etc).

This was a bit of meta work that may or may not be worth the effort.

As a general rule, I add every book that I come across into Obsidian, as I find increasing value in that over time. In the case of lists like this, it gives me another data point on most of those books (yet another reason to read them or not), as well as giving me a few more books in the list. I could be more discerning, but it’s easier just to add them all instead of thinking “well, should I add this one, or maybe not, or I guess I should…“, similar to how I handle my contact list.

This is meta work that most people choose not to do, but I find it valuable over time. Months from now when I’m looking for a book to read, these are in my system along with the note of why it’s in there (“From the list that Jason and Julie published”). I find that valuable, but you may find it to be too time-consuming to do that.

We both may be right.

When it comes to this kind of stuff, there is no perfect answer. I know other agencies that track their time and do a fantastic job of it, and I know people that read far more than I do without an elaborate note-taking system. There’s no one answer, but it’s always wise to be considering whether the meta work is worth your time, or if you should skip it and just get down to the real work instead.

Benjamin Franklin’s self-doubt led to the signing of the Constitution

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On September 17, 1787, Benjamin Franklin gave a speech at the Constitutional Convention which led to the signing of the Constitution. Franklin wasn’t convinced that the document was perfect, but he also knew that maybe he was wrong and he encouraged everyone to move forward. Here’s part of what he said:

“I confess that I do not entirely approve of this Constitution at present, but sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it: For having lived long, I have experienced many Instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment and to pay more respect to the judgment of others.“

Later in the talk he encouraged others to do the same:

“On the whole, sir, I cannot help expressing a wish, that every member of the convention, who may still have objections to it, would with me on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.“

He ultimately decided a few things:

  • He didn’t fully approve it, but knew that his judgement might be poor.
  • He wanted to respect the judgement of others.
  • He encouraged others to approve it, even if they had some objections.

He knew that they’d never get to a point where everyone agreed on every word of the document, so he encouraged everyone to move forward to at least get it published.

As I’ve said before, it can be good to doubt yourself. My previous posts were about using self-doubt to improve your knowledge, but Franklin shows it can also be good to help push things forward. He knew that his opinions on the document could potentially be mistaken, and it was good enough that it was worth moving forward instead of just letting everyone argue about it even longer.

237 years later, he seems he got it right.

Movie tickets are sunk costs

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The idea of a “sunk cost” has always been interesting to me. I understand it rather well, but it often feels counter-intuitive. As a result, I love finding new ways to explain it to help me widen my understanding.

If you’re not familiar with the term, Wikipedia defines it as “a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered.“

In other words, if you can’t get your time or money back, then don’t factor that into your decision of whether to keep going down the path you’re on. Seth Godin puts it this way:

“The thing you earned, that you depend on, that was hard to do–it’s a gift from your former self. Just because you have a law degree, a travel agency or the ability to do calligraphy in Cyrillic doesn’t mean that your future self is obligated to accept that gift.“

You should treat things as a gift from your past self, knowing that it’s your decision to accept or reject that gift, based on your current circumstances.

In his book “The Personal MBA“, Josh Kaufman offers up this analogy:

For example, if you purchase a movie ticket, you have the ability to occupy a seat in the theater, but you don’t have to if a better opportunity presents itself. When you purchase the ticket, all you’re purchasing is the right to exercise the Option to see the movie at the time specified—nothing more.

Understood properly, sunk costs can free you from things you feel like you “need” to do. If you have tickets to a show but the weather is bad and you’re feeling sick, you don’t need to go. The common thought is “I can’t waste the $25 that I spent on these tickets”, but the $25 is gone either way. You have two options:

  • The $25 is gone, and you can drag your sick self out in the weather and be miserable.
  • The $25 is gone, and you can stay home, stay warm, and get some rest.

It’s a shame to waste $25 like that, but that’s irrelevant to the decision at hand. This can apply to other things like hiring (“We need to let her go, but we’ve put so much effort into training her”) or reading (“This book is awful, but I’ve already put three hours into it”), but at the end of the day you just need to decide whether to accept the gift from your former self or not, and many times turning it down is the best thing you can do.

The Sunday Summary: Defining the problem, writing down ideas, and staying connected with others

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In 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, July 15: Three ways of learning
You can learn from books, from others, or from your own experience. If you can do all three, everything will accelerate.

Tue, July 16: Define the problem
Sometimes the problem seems obvious, but it’s worth exploring a bit to make sure it is before you come up with the solution to the wrong problem.

Wed, July 17: Writing down an idea feels like a detour
“And while writing down an idea feels like a detour, extra time spent, not writing it down is the real waste of time, as it renders most of what we read as ineffectual.”

Thu, July 18: Change your defaults
What do you turn to when you’re bored? Is it worth rethinking that?

Fri, July 19: Multiplexity
“While we may want to categorize people into just work and personal buckets, real social networks do not seem to operate that way. And that is to our benefit. Research shows that not only does multiplexity help us become more aware of real-life opportunities, but it enhances our performance on the job—and can even enhance the performance of an entire organization.”

Sat, July 20: Authentic reach-outs
Do you intentionally reach out to others to stay connected? If you do, are you really wanting to reconnect with them or are you just checking an item off your list?

I hope you found some value in this. If you ever have questions, ideas, or disagreements regarding anything I write, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Authentic reach-outs

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I try to stay in touch with many people in my life, as relationships of all kinds are generally a great thing to have. I also notice when others reach out to me, which is always appreciated.

While there are a lot of people that I know I need to reach out to, I also use some tools to remind me. Over the years I’ve used “Nat” and “Dex”, and later “Nimble”, but now I just have a list in my notes app to go from.

What’s interesting to me is the authenticity level of people who reach out to me. Two in particular stand out:

Regular, authentic calls

There is one person that calls me roughly once a quarter to check in, and it’s always a great chat. He honestly wants to hear what’s going on, shares about himself, and follows up with an email (if need be) with anything we might have discussed.

Clearly just a name on list

There are others that clearly just have “check in with people” on their to-do list, so they hustle through it. A few years ago a colleague reached out separately to both Ali and I with a nice message. We both replied with some questions back to him to keep the conversation going but he never replied back at all. I have no doubt that he was just running through a list and had no real intention to honestly reconnect.

They can lead to more

It’s fantastic to me when one of these reach-outs can lead to more. There’s a guy I reached out to a couple months ago, having not spoken directly to him in about five years (other than a random LinkedIn comment from one of us), so catching back up was great. From there, we played a round of golf together, he joined us later for an evening at Topgolf, and I’ll be on his podcast in the near future.

That’s what “reaching out” is really about. It’s not just checking an item off a list, but really trying to reconnect with people that you’ve met in the past that you like and respect.

It’s something that I’ll continue to do, and I’ll also always be pleased when someone else takes the time to authentically reconnect with me.