People, Let Me Tell You About My Best Friend

My mom and I used to really love to watch The Courtship of Eddie's Father. The song was the best. Somehow that song popped into my head recently, and it's making me face the reality that I did lose my best friend. My mom died November 15, 2013 and I'm still trying to process that.

I realized that part of the reason my mom was so thrilled about my son was not just because she genuinely enjoyed him as a person. It was also because his birth made me a mother. Because she would get to see me experience the joys of motherhood. I think about that when I make my son breakfast in the morning and pack his lunch. I think about how she used to draw a little Momma cartoon on my lunch bag each day.

I know my mom was so happy for me when I got pregnant. She realized that this person, my son, was probably going to become my best friend. She was right.

I lost my best friend, and I have a new best friend now.

X Ways to Verb Your Noun

Watching a blogging class from HubSpot. It's packed with great information, so I have to admit I was a little surprised to see them embrace the tired convention of creating a headline with a number in it. Sure, these are meant to assure the reader that they will get a finite number of digestible tips to achieve their goal. But they are so commonplace now, and so many inferior articles have been written using that type of headline, that it's almost embarrassing to rely on that construction.

Another piece of advice offered was:

Q. How often should you blog? 

A. As often as you want people to pay attention to you.

 Here's a novel thought:

Q. How often should you blog? 

A. As often as you actually have some useful information to convey.

I agree with the advice in the class that coming up with a really good title is important. There was even a slide in the presentation devoted to the quote from Dharmesh Shah, "spend half your time writing content, half writing the title." Sometimes, though, a title just comes to you, like the one for this post, and you have to roll with it, even if you don't have all that much to say.  It was either that one or: One Way to Title Your Blog Post.

Think Like a Customer, Not Like a Marketer

Yesterday I was taking a look at some of the Google ads we are running, including one that had originally been drafted by someone on the marketing team. Not to call anyone out specifically or anything, because I see this all over the place, but I noticed he had used the word "products" in the ad heading. I also noticed that the ads headed "MyPlate Education" that I had been experimenting with
were performing better than those headed, "MyPlate Products." And this was my thought:

Marketers: Please do not use the word products in your marketing materials. When I head to the store, I don't think, "Oh, I can't wait to go buy some products." People don't buy products. The don't buy services. They buy the thing they need. I need a massage. I need some cold medicine. I need a poster for my classroom about MyPlate. To market effectively, we need to describe to people exactly what we have available, and to leave the marketing jargon in the office.

So, I think I am going to include some even more narrowly targeted ads: MyPlate Posters, MyPlate Stickers. Because the customer is always right.

Instant Analytics Feedback is Addictive

When I wear my social media hat, I get addicted to real time analytics. Whether it's bit.ly or Facebook, the data absolutely shapes my behavior and helps me do my job better - instantly! I actually think Facebook made a big mistake by taking the little graph off of the pages main view. Now they give you some general up or down data, but I always thought the graph was very motivating.

Now I'm switching gears and relishing AdWords feedback. But it is *much* more complicated. What's it all mean, Mr. Natural? I'm having a great time figuring it out. Trying to balance my instinct to tinker with the need to not introduce too many  new variables -- otherwise I won't know how to assess the new data.

Just for Akiva: ASSESS ALL THE THINGS!

Habit Fails and Successes

So ... as predicted ... since I was so super busy this weekend and forgot to think about cues for my new habits, I failed on some of them:

• Grabbing lunch of leftovers - Didn't do ... but it wasn't exactly a fail as I still have last week's lunch because I ended up going out to eat Friday.
• Kegels - Totally spaced. Car radio being on is not a good cue because I just leave it on! Cue has to be an action.
• Planning Today's Work - same as last week - my desktop holds the undone. But I am thinking more intentionally about the order of the day. Still, maybe that should be re-thought and be something I do at the *end* of each day to be ready for the next one.
• No Sugar in my Coffee - OK, the cue is simply getting the coffee. Almost mindlessly added sugar today, but I stopped myself.
• Newly added habit of blogging: AOK!

Tripping through my Facebook feed (or was it Friendfeed?), could have sworn I saw an article about a habit app that appeared to be based on BJ Fogg's work. But now I can't find it. UPDATE: Found it! It's called LittleBit. There does seem to be a lot of buzz about habit apps these days. I am not much of a smartphone user - being tethered to my desktop all day, I *try* to stay away from devices during my downtime (emphasis on *try*, more emphasis on *not succeeding*).  I predict 2014 will be the year I succumb to smartphone land.