Sweet carving job on a pumpkin at Sitening HQ.
Originally published at Sticky, Sweet, & A Little Overdressed. You can comment here or there.
I hate to copy the post outright but it’s so short, and the whole quote is just hilarious. Because it’s so true.
And how.
Believe it or not, it gets better. In the linked interview, he goes on to say:
Instead, just do it. Go fast, get where you’re going. The odds of getting stopped are small, the price of the ticket is small and if you’re doing the right thing in the first place, it’s worth it.
The only quibble I have is that the “price of the ticket” may not be all that small; it could well cost a great deal. I can vouch for that. But I certainly agree that if you’re doing the right thing, it’s worth trying to get where you’re going anyway. One of my favorite quotes is from Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker:
Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.
There’s nothing wrong with sobriety, responsibility, or caution; in their place, they make a great deal of sense. But they’re no guarantee of success, and they certainly aren’t associated with many of the great long-term success stories. They’re good tools to have at one’s disposal in times of difficulty, but should not be the default position. Otherwise, what fun is anything?
Originally published at Sticky, Sweet, & A Little Overdressed. You can comment here or there.
From the Sitening blog:
Sure, sure, I’m excited about “the focus we’re going to be able to apply” and joining “such a talented group of web professionals.” Whatever. The real reason this rocks is this:
Dude. Coffee goes high tech. I like it.
Originally published at Sticky, Sweet, & A Little Overdressed. You can comment here or there.
I want to reduce my gas consumption and my carbon footprint. But little by little, I’m getting talked out of my bike commuting plans. Several people in the past few weeks have expressed concern over the lack of shoulder in several places on the road I’d be riding along with the speed of traffic on the road, particularly relative to a (slow) cyclist.
I’m gradually coming to the conclusion that, dammit, they’re probably right.
So now I’m left wondering what I want to do about my commute. Besides commuting by bike, I’ve decided to catalog the options I’m weighing, and see if anyone has any other suggestions:
On the other hand, I was actually looking forward to the quiet time on the bike, whereas I’m not so eager to spend ~$20K on a new car. On the third hand, I do rather like being alive and don’t want to risk life and limb just to be stubborn about being a zero-carbon commuter.
Other than that, I’m out of ideas. Anyone out there have any novel approaches for reducing ecological impact on the daily work commute?
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
My first article in Circulation Management’s “Monday Morning Expert” column is now up on their web site:
Can’t believe anyone believes a word I say with a promo picture like that. 
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
I got email this morning from an editor at Circulation Management asking for clarification on some of the points from the presentation at the Circulation Management show in Chicago a few weeks ago, and since I was writing up some thoughts for her, I thought I’d put them here, too. Enjoy!
Behavioral Targeting: Six Easy Ways to Get Started
Chances are, you’re already collecting data that, when analyzed and applied, could optimize customers’ experience as well as your revenues. Most analytics platforms can tell you about new vs. returning visitors, and can usually further break the latter group down into first-time buyers vs. repeat customers. Chances are also pretty good that each of these groups is behaving somewhat to very differently on your site, and if you don’t figure out what works best for each, you’re leaving money on the table.
Behavioral targeting and marketing approaches are heavily borrowed from the domain of direct response. Meaningful segments, appealing offers, and consistent remarketing are all part of a well-rounded practice.
Sometimes you can spot a useful segment, but actually breaking it out for targeting purposes may be trickier than you expect. (Geotargeting falls into this category for many sites). Unless you’re a black belt behavioral marketer and there’s nowhere else to turn for optimization, you probably have lower-hanging opportunities to pursue. Think in terms of both providing the biggest returns and taking on the least daunting setup to find the hidden treasure on your site.
It’s likely that you can realize substantial gains in your success metrics by thinking at a high level about audience characteristics, and then monitoring more granular groupings for meaningful patterns. Most of the groupings you follow in any given campaign won’t perform in a way that bears statistically significant differences to your control group, but the ones that stand out can always be segments in a future campaign.
The beauty of online marketing is the wealth of data and control you can exercise over context. The content you display on your site and in your ad networks can be adjusted based on any number of factors. Look for opportunities to tighten your message and your call to action based on context.
The key lesson in all of this is: it depends. It depends on your audience, it depends on your site, it depends on the time of day, the time of week, the time of year, and so on. The only way you’ll know what works for any given audience for any given situation is to test it. And test it, and test it again. Invest in a testing platform and process that provides you with the flexibility and the visibility to act quickly and learn quickly, and it will pay for itself many times over.
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
Seen this?
It’s Yahoo’s SearchMonkey program. Hmm. “Searchmonkey.” That’s kind of cute… and very familiar! Where have I heard that before?
Oh yeah! Here:
I’m not bitter, though. They can have it. What with Yahoo’s current difficulties, it’ll probably do them about as much good as it did me.
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
This afternoon as my coworker Duane and I were meeting downtown with the ad agency working on our new logo, a storm started kicking up outside. It was just beginning to rain as we got up to leave, and the wind was fierce. I, of course, was wearing a billowy skirt that hit just above the knee. That is, when the wind isn’t gusting — in the wind, it hits just above the shoulder.
Yes, my friends, I walked out of the agency’s office pulling a double-Marilyn — trying to keep my skirt from flying up both in front and in back — and failing miserably. The assistant creative director was gallantly walking me and Duane to my car, trying to cover me with his umbrella and remain chivalrous and composed while I nearly laughed myself into hysterics trying to keep my skirt below my thighs.
I’ve been laughing about it all the rest of the afternoon. But as soon as I got home, I changed into safe, reliable pajama pants.
Oy.
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
You know all those articles I’ve been linking about Maghound? Well, in case it wasn’t obvious, it’s an initiative I’m keeping my eye on. Time Inc. is launching this online magazine service in late Q3, and oh by the way, Time Inc. happens to be an investor in an online magazine service called Magazines.com, too, so… I guess that’s a little weird, right?
Anyway, last week at this conference I was speaking at, I got chatting with Dave Ventresca, president of Maghound. We’d met once before and were having a nice enough conversation, and then… someone approached us with a camera.
Quick: what’s the best thing to do when someone wants to take what they think will be a caption-worthy photo?
Why, make it MORE caption-worthy, of course.
Your caption suggestions welcome here.
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
I’ve seen some cool wordles, but it wasn’t until a friend posted one she created using a recent research paper that I got inspired to create one of my own. This wordle uses my “manifesto,” which was a 37-page, 6,889-word document outlining a proposed strategy for how we at Magazines.com interact with our customers to optimize lifetime value.
No surprise that “email” and “customers” are the prominent words for a visualization of a document describing, essentially, how best to communicate with our customers.
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
I had stress dreams all night about work. Not just work, but, um, well, strategic issues that influence the future of the company.
Maybe I already need another vacation?
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
“I can imagine using it– I like not being locked into any commitments and it could be fun to try out magazines that are hard to find in ordinary airport newsstands. […] While working on home construction I’d sign up for all interior design magazines.”
“The whole point of magazine subscriptions is the set-it-and-forget-it model, which is why they always try to entice readers with steeply discounted 2- and 3-year plans.”
“Some major challenges would seem to be: Rising paper and postal costs. The magazine industry’s traditionally slow execution starting new subscriptions. More and more magazine content being accessed on the Web.”
“I’ve been waiting for this. While I hate to pay the newstand price for magazines, I often do. Why do I pay $4.95 for a single issue when I could subscribe for about $15 per year?”
“But, unless I’m missing something, we have a small problem here, and it has to do with the length of the magazine-lover’s best-friend’s tail. The company says it has 280 magazines signed up so far, and hopes to have 300 by launch.”
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
I’m in Chicago to speak at a pretty big conference, and my co-presenter is a guy I’ve never met, and our topic is one I know a thing or two about but have never spoken on before. We still haven’t finished writing the content of the presentation. Our session is three days away, and he doesn’t get into town until late the afternoon before.
And yet I’m strangely relaxed today. I’m either completely delusional, or I know what I’m doing enough to feel like we’re going to pull this off anyway.
Or maybe a little of both.
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
Originally uploaded by Kate O’
My coworker Andy told me a sad story about a coyote killing a cat, and then left me a little chin-up note to counteract it. This place is nutty.
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
My work day today consisted of almost 6 hours of driving, an hour and a half of meetings, and two hours of watching a minor league baseball game. (Our team won.)
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell your cat! But be warned: this position reports to me, and it is well known that I am a hard-bitten meany-head.
Customer Experience Specialist
We know you’re out there: an excellent problem-solver, equal parts tech-savvy and marketing-minded, great attitude, maybe just a little too smart for your own good… and frustrated because there aren’t a whole lot of e-commerce jobs around Nashville. We understand – you haven’t had a lot of professional web experience. Sure you’ve built your own web site and you set up your own Wordpress blog, complete with every cool plugin you could find, and you know your way around Photoshop enough to have done your own graphics. You know a little something about usability, and you find yourself analyzing web sites and know how they could improve. But what employer would consider that relevant experience?
We feel your pain. And we have just the job for you.
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
Originally uploaded by Kate O’
Edited to add: Oops. Must have misformatted my email to flickr-blog this photo, because I had notes with it and they didn’t make it. Oh well. What I was saying was that this was on my monitor when I came back to my desk after a particularly difficult day.
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
We’ve just launched a promotion on Magazines.com that spotlights titles printed on recycled or sustainably harvested paper. Earth Day wasn’t originally on our seasonal marketing calendar (silly oversight) so we pulled this together on very short notice, and I’m proud of us for making the effort.
http://www.magazines.com/ncom/mag/main/e
Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.
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