Crusty
Andy Gadiel sends in this photo. Why is this pie wearing a tie?
Tip: never use the word "shear" in the name of a hairdresser or "crust" in the name of a pie company. Trust me on this one.
Joel can write
The blog shouldn’t be called: Joel on Software. It should be called Joel on Things that Matter. The first half is a beautifully written post about a meeting with BillG at Microsoft.
There’s a lot of mythology in our lives, especially at work. Most of the time, that mythology is a lot more important than whatever fact you’re in love with right this minute.
And the lunch was good, too
Thanks to everyone who came to my seminar yesterday (reviewed: The Marketing Message Blog: Seth Godin’s June 15th teleseminar.) I’m still exhausted, and apologize for the light posts this week.
The key lesson for me was how much smarter people are getting about the online world–and fast. It used to be pretty easy to offer people new online ideas, because the future wasn’t very well-distributed. It’s getting a lot more difficult to do that now, because it seems as though (almost) everyone knows (almost) everything. At least that’s what my audience demonstrated yesterday.
Hiring the right people
Bought some stuff at the Container Store yesterday (this is a true story, btw).
The clerk bagged the items.
Then decided she had used too big a bag.
So she took the items out, carefully refolded the bag and grabbed a smaller bag.
Bagged the items.
Decided that this was good, but that new bag might not be sturdy enough.
So she took a second bag and put the first bag into the second bag to reinforce it.
I finally had to grab the stuff out of her hands, stifling her screams for more time, more time, and ran out of the store, even though she was concerned that the ‘paid’ sticker on the oversize item was a little crooked.
Sure, she was an annoying nut. But she was passionate about containers, certainly. Smart hiring goes a long way.
Maybe you don’t want traffic so badly?
My previous post on traffic for your blog placed tongue in cheeck and described more than fifty ways you should change your blog if you want traffic.
But what good is traffic if it gives you laryngitis?
For most bloggers, the point of blogging is to find your voice, to share your ideas, to let the world hear what you have to say.
But if you need to conform, to fit in, to follow the rules, you may very well find that you’ve lost the reason you had for blogging in the first place.
And the delicious irony is that those that conform often don’t get more traffic. They often get less. Because following all the checklists can make you boring.
Safe is risky.
Do customers have responsibilities?
Yesterday on the plane, a couple spent the entire flight badmouthing the JetBlue staff. I mean significant profanity and personal attacks. They should have had the cops waiting at the runway, imho.
What fascinated me was that this couple didn’t seem to mind that their beef was trivial (they didn’t get to sit together in row 10, as they hoped. They could either sit together in row 20 or sit separately) but that they were willing and able to go nuclear with total aplomb.
It struck me that this would have been inconceivable for sober people just ten years ago.
Would it be okay for JetBlue to blacklist this couple? To say, "you guys totally crossed the line, you can’t fly with us any more?"
As consumers gain more power and anonymity starts to disappear, I think this might happen a lot. And not just on airplanes. What happens to the person who builds the "I hate McDonald’s blog" and spends his life ranking on them? Does she end up banned from the fast food she loves to hate?
What to write when you don’t know what to write
The only reason to go this page: Apple – Support – MacBook Pro is because your new Mac is not working right. So, how many people want to read:
So kick back, have a look around, and stay awhile…
Webpage words are free in that they don’t cost anything to write. They are not free, though, because they keep the user from what they really need, and increase the chance that they’ll just leave.
If you’re not sure what to say, say nothing.
Oddica Loves Brian
A t-shirt with…packaging. Oddica Loves Me.
My breakfast was right
Room service just arrived, and my insanely complex OCD breakfast was exactly the way I ordered it. This was possibly a first.
Then I discovered the reason. The person who brought it to my room was the very same person who assembled it.
Boy that was obvious.
The spreading paradox of Broadway
It costs many millions of dollars to open a Broadway show. If it doesn’t run for months or years, investors get creamed.
Yet one or two bad reviews can crush a show, impacting attendance so seriously that it never recovers.
The obvious answer is to make a show review proof. You do this by intentionally scheduling a short run and stocking the play with big stars.
Big stars, though, likely require you to modify the show so that it’s not so good–at least not so good by Broadway standards. (Julia Roberts is a star, her show was not well respected). Result: You sell a lot of tickets (in fact, The Odd Couple sold out before it opened). You are review-proof. And you train the audiences who attend that Broadway shows aren’t so great.
The new Superman movie will cost more than a fifth of a billion dollars to make. Perhaps the same strategy will cross their mind?
As the stakes get higher, it’s easy to play it safer. And when you play it safe, more often than not, the very plight you were seeking to avoid becomes more likely.