johnmaconline

My social media feed is riddled with mushroom coffee ads.

There’s one brand in particular that serves me the overwhelming number of ads. Obviously, I’m squarely in their demographic. They’re working me hard, but the CCA (cost of customer acquisition) on me is going through the roof. So far, it’s infinite.

Strange, I know, because according to the ads, if I drink just one cup a day, everything is gonna be awesome. I’ll look like a younger, ripped fitness model (I’ll even grow a beard?). I’ll be extremely virile. I’ll be a productivity and energy machine. My mental acuity will be off the charts. Others will notice and flock to me.

There’s nothing new about this approach. Pitchmen have been hyperbolizing pitches since they first started pitching.

But we all know this type of pitch is a race to the bottom. The pitcher doesn’t care about your outcome. They only care about their income.

You’re trading on trust. And when you blow that trust, you’re not just losing a customer. You’re building a cynic. Everyone walks away feeling like a mark.

What if, instead, you treat your audience as partners, not marks?

College is (ludicrously) expensive. 

For middle-class families, it makes sense that parents and teens should conduct cost-benefit analyses to determine whether college makes sense and, if so, where is the best fit. When you perform this analysis, you’ll find that not every major, post-college career aspiration, and college name are worth the money.

Which college is the best value for your money?

You’re in luck. Niche.com has created just such a list and one would think this would be very helpful for high school students and their parents.

Don’t waste your time. 

As with all college rankings, the criteria have two problems:

1. Once the criteria are known, the KPIs are easily gamed.
2. They generalize and average across all majors, all students, and all situations. 

It’s the generalization that really makes this list useless. 

Forget the list. Do this instead:

• Start by acknowledging that at 16/17/18 (55?), the student probably doesn’t know who they want to be when they grow up. Don’t worry. Give them permission to explore and change. Humans are amazing when we allow and encourage them to be.
• However, always choose a path to start on. Curriculum is one of the best systems for helping people figure out if the current path is the right one. Wandering without purpose rarely works — except in romanticized stories. Also, don’t confuse exploring and wandering without purpose. They might look the same, but they are not. 
• Do the math on expected earnings. All degrees are not equal. A practicing social worker and a practicing architect will not have the same expected earnings.
• With expected earnings in front of you, do the math on total cost of attendance. It just doesn’t make sense to go $200k in debt to finance some careers. Some it does. 
• Big, new buildings, facilities, and amenities don’t contribute to a career.
• Focus on degree, course of study, and cost of attendance. Not school name. 

There are a million other reasons and methods for choosing a college that might help you pick the best one, but seriously, leave the lists out of the equation. 

The first thing I did that dramatically increased my productivity, quality, and happiness was taking control of my time.

The second thing I did was stop the illusion of multitasking. 

I think of most things in terms of computers. I’ve been making and programming computers my entire life (since 4th grade). Still doing it. 

As it turns out, our brains are like a single-core computer processor when it comes to multitasking — they can’t.

The CPU can do exactly one thing at a time. If it needs to do something else, it has to do what we call a “context switch,” which comes with an overhead cost. The CPU must save the state of one task and load the next, slowing down performance and taking resources. Every switch wastes time and energy and is a source of potential bugs. 

Our brain works the same way, but worse. The brain is slow, inefficient, and error-prone when switching tasks. Studies show that multitaskers are terrible at filtering distractions, retaining information, and switching focus. Yet, for some reason, we usually still believe we’re more productive when juggling multiple things at once.

So why? And who?

Why are we trying to multitask?

Who is putting pressure on us to multitask?

If you’re a leader, don’t be the problem. 

Montgomery Ward was the first to use “Satisfaction Guaranteed” on his pioneering mail-order catalog in 1875.

At the time, it was a novel way to use trust to stand out from his competition. Trust in the mail-order business was a problem. It appears he backed it up.

Today, most packages you’ll see have “Satisfaction Guaranteed” stamped on them.
So do most websites.
So do most marketing email messages.

If you type “satisfaction guaranteed icon” in your search engine, you’ll get instant access to millions of ready-made, downloadable images that you can slap on your packaging, website, or email message.

But will you back it up?

If you’re going to stamp “Satisfaction Guaranteed” on your message, you better be willing to back it up. If you don’t, you will have blown up trust.

And trust is the most important agreement you can make with your customer.

What direction are you headed?
What are you trying to do?
What’s a path you’ll try to get there?
What are you asserting?
What will be the change you make in the world?

If you don’t have answers for those questions, Resistance is winning.

Resistance is real. Resistance is a bugger. Resistance is sneaky.

Look it in the eye and start answering those questions. You may not be right, but how will you know until you start?

You won’t need to cut the lumber yourself.
You won’t need to make the dryer yourself.
You won’t need to apply for the permits yourself.
You won’t need to carry the stuff from here to there yourself.
You won’t need to test if it meets the specs yourself.
You won’t need to build the cloud yourself.
You won’t need to design, build, staff, operate, and pay for the warehouse yourself.

Your place in the hierarchy should help someone leverage what you do best so they won’t have to, and they can stay focused on what they do best.

How best can you get that message across?

Higher RPMs!
More torque!
Lightweight design!
Ergonomic handle!
Pistol grip!
Cordless!
Brushless motor!
Sustainable materials!
Keyless chuck!

Yes, but what does it do?

It makes holes. A person isn’t in the market for a drill because of the features. They’re looking at drills because they need a hole.

What does your thing do?

The first question is, “Does it work?”

But we must qualify that according to the question, “Who’s it for?”

So the important but often overlooked first question is, “Does it work for the right person?”

It may work for the engineer down the hall, but it doesn’t at all work for your grandmother.

If the engineer is the right person, you’re done. If it needs to work for your grandmother, keep going.

Software developers found a new methodology called Agile.

Imagine you hire a contractor to renovate your entire house while you’re still living in it. The Agile approach is for the contractor to work on one room at a time. This allows you to continue living there, and the contractor can adapt as they go. “Do you like this tile? Should we move the sink here?” Change it if needed.

At its core, Agile is about iterations. Start small or with basic functionality, and then add more features or change stuff that doesn’t work. The benefits of this approach dovetail nicely with software development because it’s just typing — it can be changed easily and infinitely.

Remote work has enabled a new paradigm that more tightly integrates workers’ professional and personal lives. You don’t need a tie. You can take the call from the 6th-grade orchestra concert. Your morning doesn’t require you to be up at 4:30, so you can beat the traffic at 5 am.

But none of these new paradigms are a license to be unprofessional.

Show up on time.
Take criticism.
Do what needs to be done.
Do what you say you’re gonna do.
Develop and apply the skills required.
Think about where you’re going.
Help others on the team.
Look the part.
Act the part.
Be available.
Design the outcome.

Who does a professional in your line of work need to be?

The first two don’t really matter.

The first one might be a fluke, or it might be the busker on the street corner who needs to stand out.
The second one either feels bad for the first, admires his bravery, or catches that bravery from him, so he hops alongside for support.

It’s the 3rd that matters.

The 3rd makes it a scene. A group. He makes it socially acceptable to be part of that group. He creates a landing zone for those who are looking for a scene. He creates tension for those who see the group.

If you’re making something, you care about that 3rd person.