Thoughts From The Cake Scraps

An eight – above average but falling short of the best. This is what I find when I ask people about their Excel skills.  In fact I would wager that this is what most people would say about their skills with any tool provided one thing.  The sole criteria for being an 8 is that they have used the tool enough such that their usage would be self-defined as frequent or occasionally (as opposed to used once or once a year).  The problem is, of course, that we don’t live in Lake Wobegon.  But if you ask people, person after person will tell you an 8.

I am not immune to this.  In fact, I claim to be an 8 of 10 in the business non-statistical application of Excel.  To me this means that I am not responsible for knowing the advanced mathematical and statistical formulas used in Excel, nor do I know how to write advanced VBA code from scratch.  What it does mean is that I know my way around PivotTables (and getpivot – both syntax options), am well versed in formatting data/graphs, can use a variety of text formulas (len, mid, right, left, proper, etc.), lookup formulas (vlookup, hlookup, index, etc.) and other advanced worksheet formulas (indirect, match, find, search, sumif, etc.), know how to create a dynamic named range, write basic VBA code, and create basic custom number formats (including if/then logic).

I know that I have shortcomings as well.  I don’t have the syntax for custom number formats memorized, array formulas still take a bit to figure out (and I don’t often think to use them), my VBA skills could use some polish, there are a bunch of keyboard shortcuts I don’t have memorized, and I don’t use many advanced Excel Add-Ins that turn it up another notch.  I’m sure there are others, but the point is that I know I have room for improvement and see examples of really talented individuals when I read blogs or when I am searching for an answer to an issue.

The point is that I feel like I am a well informed 8.  I am not saying I am an 8 because it just feels right.  I’m saying I’m an 8 because I put in time to learn what I don’t know.  I have been in rooms where I’m not the best, but clearly quite a bit more advanced than a large percentage of the room. And yes, I would wager money that I am not so smart that I can escape the unknown unknowns.  So I am an 8 and I know it for a fact.

And hence the 8 of 10 Paradox.  Or, rather, the Downing Effect wherein “people with a below average IQ to overestimate their IQ, and of people with an above average IQ to underestimate their IQ” and “the ability to accurately estimate others’ IQ [is] proportional to one’s own IQ”.  Applied more broadly it is called the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

So remember, as you go through life, people will always be comparing themselves to others.  Knowing your results in comparison to the average just makes us feel better.  But there will be times when there is not quick test score to compare; no easy benchmark to measure against.  There will only be an opinion.  At that moment you should really stop, be honest with yourself, and consider which side of the Dunning-Kruger effect you are on.

I give this post an 8/10.  What would you give it?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

In @garyvee ‘s most recent book, The Thank You Economy, Gary makes a compelling argument for the use of social media.  If you know of Gary you know that he has been a huge proponent of social media – despite hating the term ‘social media’ – and he has had a strong and steady rise into the spotlight.  The Thank You Economy, TYE for short, is the essence of all of his bravado, condensed into an easy-read book that you’ll work your way through in a matter of hours.  I give this book an 8 of 10 and would classify it as a long-form personal opinion (with a dash of how-to type talk and examples).

The good news is that people that have not followed Gary and the social media trend (or have and don’t buy into it yet), this book is a great summary.  Unfortunately, the opposite is also true.  If you are a true fan of Gary and you follow his tweets, talks, Wine Library TV (now Daily Grape), Facebook (yes, he got /gary), etc. then this book will not hold any surprises.  It will still be entertaining and may motivate you to some extent to go get after it, but it will not share some massive new insight that was heretofore unknown.

Regardless of your exposure to Gary, the book is an interesting read with a unique perspective on the social media landscape – told from somebody on the bleeding edge of the trend and by an individual who couldn’t believe more in its power.  He references the very well known Old Spice craze and shares his thoughts on how businesses need to get back to the basics.  He often reminisces about old-school (“your grandparents generation”) ways of doing business, where they always knew your name.  Back when shopping was an intimate experience and a place where people met.

Oddly, it is an amazing parallel as people now share more than ever on websites and websites know more and more about an individual with every click.  In a very real sense the ‘shopkeepers’ do know you by name.

I actually found the most interesting part of the book after the conclusion in the area titled “Sawdust”.  Here you get a rapid fire series of topics, some as short as one line, that Gary provides his opinion on.  For any Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk fan(a Vaniac) this is a part of the book the really rings true.  You can almost see him jumping from topic to topic in his trademark over-the-top ultra-sure manner that makes him so engaging to watch.

What are your thoughts on social media?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

It has been quite some time since I tore through a book but Tony Hsieh‘s account of his life, struggles he faced, and visions for the future of Zappos was easy to finish and hard to put down.  I give this book an 8.5 / 10 and would classify it as an “inspirational” type book.

To start at the end, Delivering Happiness is about the path to the current Zappos brand promise to deliver happiness – quite a bit more broad than the “largest selection of shoes” that was the promise in 1999.  Continuing from the end backward, the book takes on the sale of Zappos to Amazon, the early (and tough) days of the company, Tony’s selling of LinkExchange, and it starts with some stories of what made Tony the person he is today.  I think the thing that really makes this book so easy to read is that it reads more as a story than any sort of handbook, guide, biography, or company history.

The book was particularly pleasant for me because I would stop and make parallels to my own youth along the way.  It was fun to think about some of the things that I did growing up – some of the ‘business’ ideas that I tried and failed at.  It also reinforced the simple truth: CEOs of the most successful companies were just kids at one point, making mistakes and learning along the way.  This is a truth that would do many good to remember when they stumble in their lives.

There were also moments of reflection for me while reading.  Having worked at one of the great customer service companies, Lands’ End, I share a passion for the customer.  A belief that we should try and help the customer.  Some of the parallels of the companies are amazing.  But at the heart of it one this is clear – both were the passion of their founders.

One point that I want to emphasize is an idea that I have had for a long time and it is interesting to hear it from a leader like Tony, that a brand cannot exist with out a company culture that matches it.  When looking for employment, schools, or areas to live this is a key thing to keep in mind.  A nice job or a fancy house or the most elite school will do you no good if the culture doesn’t fit.  You will not be happy.  And, as is pointed out at the end of the book, the short term ‘pleasure’ happiness is not enduring.  It is fleeting.  A passion is what leads to longer term happiness and being part of something  bigger than yourself lasts longest of all.  Are you making choices to be happy?

Have you read this book?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

I once read in a book that an individual is less likely to sue a doctor if the individual likes the doctor. That makes sense, as people give a larger amount of room for error, in general, for people they like compared to people they do not like.  The element that makes this possible is trust.  One trusts a doctor that they like whereas if one does not like a doctor they are more likely to be skeptical of answers, treatments, and suggestions.

The one thing that I feel like people fail to realize is what builds this sense of trust, in particular in the work environment.  Building that trust with people is a critical life skill because you can more often pick your friends than you can pick your coworkers or clients.  And this is not about a fake trust or a fake relationship.  This skill is about truly adding value to a conversation, project, or company.  When a person can do that out of genuine interest for the people they are interacting with they ensure that their friends, not coworkers, are there when they slip up.

So how does one build that trust?  The answer is that the biggest differences between people are the smallest of things.  This is because it is the smallest of things that can really make a difference.  They all add up and most people only pay attention to the overall feeling of ‘nice’ or ‘not nice’, not realizing or even being able to articulate why they feel that way (“he’s just a good guy”).  The memory that most demonstrates this and sticks in my mind was right after I got my new (used) car.  I was pumped.  It was my first ‘nice’ car; a slight splurge because I enjoy driving.  I couldn’t wait to take my coworkers for a ride in it.  I tried to think of what they would notice first.  The all-wheel drive?  The jump from the twin turbo engine? The leather seats?  Any of the obvious ‘nice’ things?  But then my friend got in the car and started fidgeting around with stuff.  Pressing buttons and testing the hanger-hooks and handles above the door.

I thought to myself “What is he doing?  Look at all the obvious nice stuff!”  And then he looked at me with this smile and said “the buttons have that satisfying click when you press them and your door handles have an elegant slow-retract to them.  Nice.”  Now, he was being a bit sarcastic with his remark, but it stuck with me.  Those are the sorts of things that, while largely ‘unnecessary’ are the exact things that make the car ‘nice’.  The engine, leather seats, nice rims…these are all things that could be put on or in virtually any car without thought.  But the satisfying, tactile *click* when I press a button or the softness of the cup holder opening up.  These are things that are small, one could say insignificant, but simultaneously the fine touches that truly make the car ‘nice’.  Things that are not obvious, not hard, but take a definite thought to put them in place

Likewise, it is the small things that make the person, even in the business world.

• If someone starts a thought and gets cut off by another, remember and ask what they were going to say
• Listen for bits of personal details during a conversation and remember to follow up on it later
• Set up a .cal list in Outlook for your company holidays (google it) and send it out to your coworkers
• Make sure to have lunch with different groups of people to learn more about them
• Sort the pages that are sitting on the printer
• Make the coffee when the pot is about empty, even if you didn’t have any
• Have that homemade treat if the person doesn’t often bring treats in
• Stop by and thank that person for bringing it in, even if it was not homemade
• Pass along an article you read to show that you’re thinking beyond your own position
• Ask about a specific item in a person’s desk/cube/office (you’d be surprised how little people do this)
• Say that you will get back to a person, even if you don’t have the time to fully answer now

This is just a short list of small things one could do at the office.  They are all small, but they all take effort.  And don’t be fooled, they take lots of effort to do all of these things all of the time.  But as my dad likes to say “the only difference between work and play is your definition.”  So work to redefine your view and these small things that take lots of effort will become natural and maybe the next time you sit down in someone’s new car you’ll notice the satisfying *click* their buttons make.

Do you take time to do the small things?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

Privacy is, and always has been, something that needs to be taken very seriously. People will only return to or do business with sites they trust. This means that while a website can track everything, it does not mean that it should. In fact, several large media sites have recently been sued over the use of “flash cookies”, which can be used to identify returning site visitors even after the user has deleted their standard cookies.

From a measurement perspective resetting cookies is excellent, as it creates a full view of the customer and their activity with your site. The allure of that level of information is obvious (lifecycle marketing, retargeting, etc.), but the user cleared their cookies for a reason and resetting it via a non-standard method can easily break trust. If you are thinking of trying out the use of “flash cookies” to reset browser cookies, you are in a very gray area and run a real risk of breaking the trust of your users–not to mention possible legal action.

In fact, because the speed of change in the web analytics industry, you should review your privacy policy to make sure that it is up to date and that the appropriate information is available to your users. To take it a step further, keep an eye out for the recently published Web Analytics Association Code of Ethics; it provides a starting point for discussion around best practices within the web analytics industry.

Use these best practices to preserve the trust of your users. Always keep privacy top of mind – even when it means reduced tracking capabilities. If data collection and privacy are not handled properly they can become a lightning rod for criticism and an unnecessary distraction from the real value that web analytics can provide.

Originally written for Catalyst, reposted here with permission.

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

I am pretty excited today because I am in a test group of the new Amazon.com “Add to Cart” process.  Instead of serving up a new page they are doing an overlay of the page you are on, a much better experience in my opinion.  As a web analyst I can’t help but wonder what sort of impact this is having on their conversion metrics.

It is clear they are testing it because a search on twitter for “Amazon new add” yielded only a few results, but it looks like more are coming in.  They must be opening up the gates a little bit since launching it a few days ago.  Perhaps as early as 9/26 for some users.  New stuff on one of the biggest e-commerce sites on the Internet is fun stuff!  We’ll know how it is working for them based on if they roll it out to everybody over the next few days  or weeks.  This would be key to have up before the holiday shopping season kicks into full gear.

As a side note (as you can tell from the image), I can’t wait for Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book – The Thank You Economy.

Do you have the new “Add to Cart”?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

Cook a steak to 130 degrees and it will be a perfect medium rare.  Mhmm, that’s the good stuff.  On the side is a nice helping of mashed potatoes with a nice dose of cheese and garlic.  Perhaps some mixed vegetables on the side or a few asparagus spears laid across the top of the steak.  Unfortunately, that is not the meal that this post is about.  This post is about the economics of hot food, or rather it is about me wondering about the economics of hot food.  Let’s get to it.

I read that if you put something on your tongue that is 150 degrees and leave it there for 2 seconds you will burn yourself.  If the temperature is 155 degrees or more it is one second or less.  So now we know that it is unwise to attempt to consume something that is at or around 150 degrees.  That means I can dive right into my medium rare steak, but a well done steak will come it at 160 degrees so watch out.  So a steak may or may not be fine to eat right off the grill but a fresh brewed cup of coffee typically clocks in at 200 degrees!  It takes more than a second or two for that to cool down to a drinkable temp, doesn’t it.  And that brings me to the point of this post.  Does a company figure out what is the ideal temperature to serve food at that maximizes customer satisfaction while minimizing additional food and/or beverage they will need to serve?

Take, for example, the Red Lobster special of Endless Shrimp.  While not excessively expensive themselves, the shrimp do cost more than, say, beans.  Additionally, it takes prep time to prepare them (no matter how fast your people are it takes time).  It is also true that a person will feel full after they stop eating because it takes the body a while to realize that it is full.  Surprisingly, it may be as long as 20 minutes after you stop eating!  Therefore, if Red Lobster keeps the shrimp coming as fast as they can, not only will you overeat but they will erode their profit margin (and make it back on that beer you had).

Interestingly then, it makes the most sense for everybody to have you consume the shrimp  at a slower pace.  One way to do this is to serve you slowly.  While that is effective, you might tell your friends about how you felt ripped off at Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster due to their slow service.  But if Red Lobster just serves you food that is simply too hot for you to eat you don’t really have a story (so long as it is not excessively hot).  This same concept can be applied to many places.  I remember first having this thought years ago in college when I ate at a Red Robin because of the “endless steak fries” but the things came out so hot that I only got one serving.  I didn’t want to have to wait around for the next serving to cool off so I didn’t get one.  Not only did they not spend money on the food, but the server can serve more tables because they are not dealing with refills.

On a one-off basis the concept may seem silly, but when multiplied by thousands or millions of people being served, there could be a huge cost savings here.  And then of course there is the flip side.  If you serve something, like a coffee at a coffee shop, and it is a cool enough temperature that the individual can consume it quickly (but not so cool as to make it cold), perhaps people would finish their drink more quickly and it would increase coffee sales.  Again, on a large scale this could be big money.

I wonder if food companies take any of this into consideration when making and serving food.

What do you think?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

As I was driving home from work the other day the only thing that I could think about was how horrible the lights were timed.  I had noticed it before, and I knew it was annoying, but up until today I had never actually thought about how truly wasteful poor timing on traffic lights is.  As I sat at one red light after another I continued thinking about how poorly timed lights really are a big deal.  Like many things, at first pass it seems like a very silly thing to think about but after thinking on it one comes to realize just how impactful correct traffic light timing is.

There is the clear waste of time.  This is the one that most people think of as the jump from one red light to another.  The second things many people say is that it wastes gas.  A person might even say it wastes the blacktop as the stopping of large vehicles actually gradually creates ruts and bumps from the tires breaking against the blacktop.  All of these are correct, and were the first things that came to my mind.  But at about the 5th red light I began to realize something else was at play.

I realized that as I got more and more red lights in a row I was getting more and more frustrated.  Frustrated drivers are much worse for gas mileage than calm drivers.  I can imagine that many other drivers are just as frustrated.  All of that causes a more dangerous overall driving situation for everybody in addition to the additional wear and tear on a car from fast starts and abrupt stops.  Of course it is easy to say that a person should just not drive worse, but that indeed ignores the reality of the condition that we are dealing with humans and emotions must be taken into account when assessing the impact of actions.

So what we have is one mistake (poor traffic light timing) that leads to other mistakes (poor driving) that then take a situation from frustrating to downright dangerous.  One could even say that yet another mistake that is then made is that people want to occupy all of this down time which leads them to text, surf the radio, or look for a song on their music device.  Again, all of this just adds to the danger of the situation.

The simple moral is that, as often as you can, you should try to find the source of the problem and start there.  A ban on texting in that stretch won’t solve the issue.  Playing happy music won’t solve the issue.  Only looking at the real problem can the issue be fully addressed.  Addressing the source of the problem solves all of the downstream problems.  This is obvious, but I think it is good to have a reminder every now and again to keep it fresh in your mind.

Do you let the traffic get to you?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

Recently within the #measure community there has been much talk about Google launching https://www.google.com which is an SSL version of Google search.  The big issue is that when a user clicks through a search result the referring site is stripped off and there is no way for the destination site to tell what keyword was used.  What will happen next depends on who you talk to.

Perhaps this means that businesses don’t know what is driving traffic to their site (via natural/organic search) so they will not want to spend ad dollars on keywords that may or may not be used frequently by their visitors.  Maybe businesses switch spending to a different service, such as Bing, where they can feel more comfortable knowing what they are spending on.  For the web analysts, like myself, there is the issue about where the traffic shows up in marketing channel reporting.  We will no longer know how much traffic Google is driving to our sites.  Since Google is such a major player in the search game this could be a huge issue.

But there is one problem with all of this.  While I -  as a web analyst – care about this,   I -  as a customer, as a searcher – don’t give a crap what a company does or doesn’t get.  That’s their problem to work out.  In fact, with all the talk about privacy from all the Facebook changes, as a searcher I would be happy with any new security Google can provide for me.  So this means that the users of search are not going to drive Google away from defaulting to SSL searches and perhaps do the opposite and attract more pepole.  That only leaves the businesses paying for advertising, but they hardly have any strength at all.  Really, it just means businesses will not spend money as efficiently as they could be so they would have to buy more keywords or risk lost revenue from lack of paid traffic.

That inefficiency is one of the smaller ways Google could make some money.  There is an even bigger opportunity that is revealed in Google’s own statement about the service:

Searching over SSL doesn’t reduce the data sent to Google — it only hides that data from third parties who seek it.

You see where I’m going with this?  Google could start charging for access to the natural search.  This is sold to senior leadership at businesses by stressing that without the data the company 1) won’t know what is driving search traffic to the site and 2) won’t be able to spend their search advertising dollars efficiently.  It is a grand slam for Google.  Furthermore, before you get up in arms about the thought of paying for this data, have you ever used Acxiom data to gather targeting information on customers you otherwise know nothing about?  If you’re not in the direct mail space, then what about Hitwise or Comscore?  All of that is the same thing. Nielsen Ratings? Same thing.  Just a company collecting (or buying) massive amounts of data and packaging and selling that data to clients.

At the end of the day businesses simply cannot afford to say “screw Google, we’ll buy ads elsewhere”.  They will pay for this data, and probably line up to do it (after the mandatory complaining about how they used to get it free).  We all know that Rupert Murdoch is changing the face of news on the internet by charging for it.  There were even talks about making Google pay to index it.  Google needs to keep looking for new ways to generate revenue; charging for search data may be it.  At the very least it could come free with Google Analytics, giving you one more reason to switch.  I bet that wouldn’t make Omniture / Adobe very happy.

I think things could get interesting.  What do you think?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

My posts with the most traffic are the ones that talk about these online ‘entertainment shopping’ sites.  They have come quite a way since I first blogged about them, but now you finally have a chance to strike back.

I first saw Off & Away in an article that TechCrunch wrote about.  It has the typical comments about it being a scam since you pay $1 for the bids that raise the auction price $0.25 and then the winner pays whatever the final cost of the room is.  Not sure if your bids are applied to paying the price of the room, but I assume not.

But here’s the thing: you want to lose.  Well, maybe you don’t want to lose, but there seems to be a nice loophole where this site, that many people call a scam, could actually save you money.  It all relies on the simple thing they did to not make it a complete rip-off: you can apply the money you spent on bids towards a hotel room.  Furthermore, it says right on the site that they have up to 50,000 partner hotels.  Clearly all of these are not as ludicrously priced as the $40,000 room they have up to launch the site.

So, if you know you want to go some place and you are willing to spend $200 on the room (for 1 night) buy $180 worth of bids.  Then, place the bids on the auction for the awesome room.  Let me state right away that you will probably not win.  But that doesn’t matter because of another gem they built into their business model:

“Apply up to 110% of your used bids towards a room at one of our 50,000 partner hotels.”

So, you don’t win the room you bid on but your $180 is now worth $198.  It may not seem like much, but 10% is 10%.  Not too shabby.  You spend less than you were going to spend and you have a shot at getting the awesome hotel room you bid on (if only a very small chance).

I will probably stick with a site like Priceline or HotWire for my hotel needs, as they are more of a sure thing.  But if you want to live a little and have minimum risk, this Off & Away thing may be something to check out.  Of course you might be better off just using a AAA discount…

So, do you think it is a scam?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.