Reading Time: 2 min When building websites, or really any kind of marketing deliverable, we have to strike an interesting balance. On the one hand, we have a tight scope of work and a clear directive on what needs to happen. On the other hand, we’re not always sure exactly what that looks like. If someone needs a new […]
Personalization versus personal
Reading Time: < 1 min I’ve shared before my dislike for most forms of automation, and personalization is often closely related. Both of those are marginally acceptable for huge companies, but it’s shaky at best. It’s cute that Verizon sends emails that actually start with my name, but as Seth Godin has said, “A mail merge makes nobody happy“. Personalization […]
Two enormous books
Reading Time: 2 min I do most of my reading on my Kindle, for reasons I’ve explained earlier. I enjoy the experience, and it makes it easy to migrate my highlights over after I’m done reading. From time to time I’ll pick up a “real” book, but it’s rare. In most cases, it’s only when I don’t have a […]
The truth versus paywalls
Reading Time: 2 min It feels like most information today is free, and it largely is. Movies and music are locked up in services like Netflix and Spotify, but most news and information is free, right? It largely is, but the growing list of news outlets that are putting up paywalls is becoming troublesome. I don’t object to them […]
Strategy or tactic?
Reading Time: < 1 min While recently reading “The 1-Page Marketing Plan“, author Allan Dib frequently came back to the same concept of explaining the difference between a strategy and a tactic. In his words: Understanding the difference between strategy and tactics is absolutely key to marketing success. Strategy without tactics leads to paralysis by analysis. Tactics without strategy leads […]
A quick look at 2022
Reading Time: 2 min Every January first (for the past few years – 2020, 2021) I like to look at some numbers and stats from the previous year. Content This year my writing dropped a tiny bit down to 358 posts thanks to COVID, for a total of 1347 live posts on the site. I’m hoping to get it […]
My favorite books from 2022
Reading Time: < 1 min Over the course of 2022, I read a total of roughly 70 books. I say “roughly” for two reasons: That being said, here are my favorites 10 from the year, in no particular order, with links to a post of mine with more thoughts on the book, and those posts all have links to buy […]
Do Better in 2023
Reading Time: < 1 min Michael Schur, writer for “The Office” and creator of “The Good Place” recently wrote a book called “How to Be Perfect“. The title is meant to be a little clickbaity, but it largely just follows concepts that he explored in The Good Place surrounding historical philosophers and complex moral issues. While it’s a great read, […]
Contractors are part of your team
Reading Time: 2 min At GreenMellen, our team is almost entirely full-time employees, as that type of structure works well for us. However, also pull in some contractors from time to time to help with additional work, as that can be a huge benefit. From our perspective, those are a different kind of employee (W9 vs 1099, not in […]
“Somebody” is somebody else
Reading Time: < 1 min In an emergency, the phenomenon of “diffusion of responsibility” can be a huge problem. The short definition is that when an accident occurs and many people are around, everyone assumes someone else will take care of it. When a person yells “somebody call 911”, everyone often assumes that “somebody” means “somebody else”. The same can […]