Reading Time: 2 min Years ago, I built a very popular website that showcased interesting locations in Google Earth. It took a lot of manual labor to find and categorize things, but it was a popular destination for a lot of users. Could I do it again today? Not a chance. First, technology is different. My manual labor of […]
Business
Is reading work?
Reading Time: 2 min In episode 179 of The Long and The Short Of It podcast, hosts Pete and Jen argue that reading for knowledge should be considered “work”, and therefore it’s acceptable to do during the workday. I don’t disagree, but it’s tricky. I read quite a lot, and most of it is for the benefit of our […]
Backups for your backup
Reading Time: 2 min At GreenMellen, we use Google Workspace for much of our work, including Google Drive for all of our files (totaling 173,405 files, 627,810 emails, together taking up 391 GB of storage). Google Drive is great, because it’s essentially an automatic backup of your files. If something goes wrong on your end, Google will still have […]
Efficient isn’t the same as effective
Reading Time: < 1 min I strive to be a very efficient person, as evidenced by the well over 100 posts in the “productivity” category of this blog. I try to be careful, though, as efficiency has very little to do with being effective, and the latter is far more important. Kevin Paul Scott laid this out beautifully in a […]
What type of problem is it?
Reading Time: < 1 min The best way to start to solve a problem is to first understand what’s really being asked. In David Epstein’s book “Range”, he says: “Whether chemists, physicists, or political scientists, the most successful problem solvers spend mental energy figuring out what type of problem they are facing before matching a strategy to it, rather than […]
Important stuff can be hard to measure
Reading Time: 2 min I’m a big believer in using data to help inform decisions. From Google Analytics to our weekly scorecard, we measure as much as we can, and then take appropriate action based on the data. That said, some of the most important numbers can be the most difficult to obtain. As Albert Einstein has said: “Not […]
Early objections come from premature solutions
Reading Time: < 1 min One thing I’ve really been working on for the past few years is listening. Listening to clients, staff, friends, leads, etc. More listening tends to lead to better results for everyone. A place I’ve really noticed this is when talking to potential clients. The more I can just sit back and let them talk, the […]
When Calendly goes wrong
Reading Time: 2 min Tools like Calendly can be fantastic. Rather than a dozen emails back-and-forth to find a time to meet, you can just share a link with your available times, and the other party can pick the one that’s best for them. It’s great! At times, though, it can unintentionally seem like a power move and be […]
But that doesn’t scale, does it?
Reading Time: 2 min Automation can be a great thing. In a way, it’s the reason you’re reading this right now instead of me having to come over to your house to tell you in person. There are databases, algorithms, feeds, and various other things that help get this post out there. That said, I’ve been clear over the […]
Does your team know when to break the rules?
Reading Time: < 1 min You’ve been there before. You’re trying to return a product to a store, but the employee isn’t able to help you. You can tell that they want to help you, but your return is one day outside of the return window, and they’ll get in trouble if they allow it. Rules are there for a […]