#truly living is a task and having to problem solve every facet of life makes it fucking exhausting

[steampoweredskeleton]

Every time I need to cut my hair I get super excited bc I know I'll love it and EVERY TIME right after I cut it I fucking hate it and feel so uncomfortable I have to avoid looking at myself for a bit bc I look suddenly different and something about that makes me feel nauseous until like two days later when I'm used to it and love it again

This time is the WORST ITS EVER BEEN

What the fuck is the deal with that bc it really makes getting my hair cut a fucking trial

[jenniferisacommonname]

T-Minus

Is the hotel nice? Well… it’s enough, anyway. There’s no microwave in the room—a major oversight on my part—but there’s one in the lobby I can use, next to an array of snacks that are only moderately overpriced, considering. We’re less than half a mile from our daily destination, and even closer to a CVS that sells the medicine I forgot to pack. On the other hand, that CVS offers no bottled water to accompany the dose: instead, their nearly-barren drinks cooler sports a yellow sign reading, “NEEDS REPAIR DO NOT RESTOCK SELL THROUGH INVENTORY,�� even though it’s apparent the task can never be accomplished because some of that inventory has been trapped inside a massive slag of ice flowing off the back wall. It’s clearly been a problem for a while.

But the middle-groundness of the hotel and its environs are actually a perfect fit for this little non-vacation I’m on. You see, my son is attending a three-day program for teens at NASA, and I am his chauffeur. The daddy-daughter bonding is in full swing back in Austin, and there are precisely zero responsibilities hanging over me between the hours of 7:30 am and 4:00 pm. It’s a freedom that, like the hotel, sounds mundane, but suits my current needs better than I could hope for. I haven’t been really alone since… well, it depends on how we’re measuring. In one sense, it’s been a little over a year, since the 2020 Spring Break that never ended. But in another, more philosophical sense, it’s been 15 years as of this morning, when my son’s birthday trip to NASA turns literal for a day.

The fact that we have just three years left with him is not especially disturbing; much moreso is the fact that his little sister has just turned 13, meaning we have only five years left with any children at all. And who, then, will I be? Because while it sucks to admit, I have in many ways forgotten. Faced with three days alone in a mediocre city, I wasn’t bereft of ideas on how to spend my time, but I did struggle to judge their relative value, as a person with long-dormant tastes and opinions. Did I want to go to a museum, or make a few dents in my decade-and-a-half nap deficit, or just stare at the wall and revel in the fucking silence? This past year has been tough, but the truth is that other years have been tougher, and absolutely none of them have been easy since I blindly started this project of creating humans.

To be clear, I don’t regret having kids—or perhaps I do, but I would also regret not having them? I’m generally a person who regrets missing out on any experience, good or bad. But recently, I’ve been replaying an old memory from my wedding day, some 18-ish years ago. In the midst of the festivities, I found myself seated between my new mother-in-law and the mother of the best man, who had known each other for exactly as long as my husband and his friend had. I mentioned my fondness for big families, and my desire to have four children.

“Oh, don’t do that,” my mother-in-law said.

“No, definitely don’t do that,” said the best man’s mother, at almost exactly the same time.

I laughed; they didn’t. “I’m sitting here between two women who both had four children themselves!” I pointed out, still thinking this was one of those Exasperated Chic, wine-o’-clock throw pillow kind of conversations.

“Yes,” they agreed. “That’s right.” Absolute deadpan.

And yet, because I’m me—or because I was who I was then, who may or may not be who I am now, because who even knows—I took it as a sort of challenge, as if they were implying that I wasn’t capable of pulling off the same feat they had. I really, truly, didn’t understand it for the clear warning it was until years later. And the Catch-22 is they couldn’t say it to either of their own daughters, just like my mother couldn’t say it to me, even though I’m confident she’d go back and live her life differently given half a chance. You can’t tell your own kids that having kids is a bad idea. You also can’t tell your nonexistent kids that not having kids is a bad idea. We’re all stuck advising strangers who aren’t inclined to take our word for it.

My gut feeling is that the “having kids” side of things still comes out ahead, because the bulk of the obligation does end eventually, and you get to go back to living only for yourself. Mark one down for having your cake and eating it, too. The question is, are you able to? Do you buy into society’s lie that everything good happens in your twenties and thirties, and spend the rest of your life wallowing in missed opportunities? Or do you perhaps see the myriad self-reinventions the world offers, only to discover that you no longer remember how to be someone at all?

Anyway, I decided not to make a plan, and just see where the three days took me. It’s not who I used to be—childless Jennifer was a planner, through and through—but I found, at least, that I could trust in being satisfied with what I chose, even if it was nothing. It turns out I do still have the ability to be myself, I just can’t predict in advance who that person is going to be. I was open to finding out.

So I went to Bed Bath & Beyond—because I’m a person who is picky about their pillows, but too embarrassed to travel with their own. I’m a person who goes out and solves a problem quickly and efficiently, and who is absolutely not too embarrassed to walk through a hotel lobby carrying what is obviously a just-purchased replacement for their shoddy offerings.

I washed my car at one of those fancy places with the vacuum tubes and interior wipes—because I’m a person who likes things to be clean, and who judges other people when their car floors are filthy even though mine have been for over a decade. I’m a person who prefers to keep things clean in the first place, and resents cleaning up after others so much that I usually just end up leaving it. But I’m also person who doesn’t mind getting down and scrubbing when I know that it will stay clean (for at least two more days, anyway.)

I had a big plate of Tex-Mex. That one wasn’t a revelation, to be honest—if there’s one facet of my personality that has survived parenthood, it’s a willingness to indulge in Tex-Mex at every opportunity. I also ate an entire box of Rice Krispie Treats over the course of the weekend.

I watched a bunch of TV shows and movies that my family would find uninteresting, and when my son got back in the evening, I watched one of them again—because I wanted to, and he didn’t know I’d already watched it just hours earlier.

And, I wrote this. Because thankfully, it turns out I’m still a person who writes for her own fulfillment, not just as a means of escape. And when the real escape comes in a few years, I now know at least a few of the things that will be waiting for me on the other side.

[theadmiringbog]

Rory’s Rules of Alchemy 

The opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea. 

Don’t design for average. 

It doesn’t pay to be logical if everyone else is being logical. 

The nature of our attention affects the nature of our experience. 

A flower is simply a weed with an advertising budget. 

The problem with logic is that it kills off magic.

--

“The trouble with market research is that people don’t think what they feel, they don’t say what they think, and they don’t do what they say.”    

David Ogilvy

--

Our first recommendation to the client was to listen to what consumers said, but to interpret it laterally rather than literally.                

--

In a sensible world, the only thing that would matter would be solving a problem by whatever means work best, but problem-solving is a strangely status-conscious job: there are high-status approaches and low-status approaches. Even Steve Jobs encountered the disdain of the nerdier elements of the software industry – ‘What does Steve do exactly? He can’t even code,’ an employee once snootily observed.                

--

I think ‘psychological moonshots’ are comparatively easy. Making a train journey 20 percent faster might cost hundreds of millions, but making it 20 percent more enjoyable may cost almost nothing. It seems likely that the biggest progress in the next 50 years may come not from improvements in technology but in psychology and design thinking.                

--

Put simply, it’s easy to achieve massive improvements in perception at a fraction of the cost of equivalent improvements in reality. 

Logic tends to rule out magical improvements of this kind, but psycho-logic doesn’t. We are wrong about psychology to a far grater degree than we are about physics, so there is more scope for improvement. Also, we have a culture that prizes measuring things over understanding people, and hence is disproportionately weak at both seeking and recognizing psychological answers.                

--

Remember the example I gave about asking why people hate standing on trains? When I asked that question, it seemed likely that no adult on the planet had asked that question for the last ten years – it sounded like such a stupid thing to ask. Perhaps advertising agencies are largely valuable simply because they create a culture in which it is acceptable to ask daft questions and make foolish suggestions.                

--

... a heated debate in the 1960s at the ad agency J. Walter Thompson about the reasons why people bought electric drills. ‘Well obviously you need to make a hole in something, to put up some shelves or something, and so you go out and buy a drill to perform the job,’ someone said, sensibly. 

Llewelyn Thomas, the copywriter son of the poet Dylan, was having none of this. ‘I don’t think it works like that at all. You see an electric drill in a shop and decide you want it. Then you take it home and wander around your house looking for excuses to drill holes in things.’ 

This discussion perfectly captures the divide between those who believe in rational explanation and those who believe in unconscious motivation; between logic and psycho-logic.                

--

Would you prefer to think of yourself as a medical scientist pushing the frontiers of human knowledge, or as a kind of modern-day fortune teller, doling out soothing remedies to worried patients? 

A modern doctor is both of these things, though is probably employed more for the latter than the former. Even if no one – patient or doctor – wants to believe this, it will be hard to understand and improve the provision of medical care unless we sometimes acknowledge it.                

--

What happens on average when a thousand people do something once is not a clue to what will happen when one person does something a thousand times.                

--

(In alchemy,) 10 x 1 does not equal 1 x 10.                

--

We can see this diversity mechanism clearly in house hunting. If I were to give you a budget to choose your perfect house, you would have a clear idea of what to buy, but it would typically be a bit boring. That’s because when you have one house, it cannot be too weak in any one dimension: it cannot be too small, too far from work, too noisy or too weird, so you’ll opt for a conventional house. On the other hand, if I were to double your budget and tell you to buy two houses, your pattern of decision-making would change. You would now be looking to buy two significantly different properties with complementary strengths – perhaps a flat in the city and a house in the countryside.                

--

Anyone can easily build a career on a single eccentric talent, if it is cunningly deployed. As I always advise young people, ‘Find one or two things your boss is rubbish at and be quite good at them.’                

--

Complementary talent is far more valuable than conformist talent.                

--

Metrics, and especially averages, encourage you to focus on the middle of a market, but innovation happens at the extremes. You are more likely to come up with a good idea focusing on one outlier than on ten average users.                

--

People don’t use reason to make better decisions, but simply for the appearance of being reasonable.                

--

As any game theorist knows, there is a virtue to making slightly random decisions that do not conform to established rules.                

--

This suggests that the prejudice we apply against a lone black candidate or a lone female candidate might also apply to a lone ‘anything’ candidate.*                

--

In competitive markets, it pays to have (and to cultivate) eccentric tastes.                

--

I had decided before we moved that I wanted to live somewhere interesting, placing more emphasis on the architecture than on the precise location or the number of bedrooms. This eccentric approach certainly minimizes status envy.                

--

It is, after all, a distinguishing feature of entrepreneurs that, since they don’t have to defend their reasoning every time they make a decision, they are free to experiment with solutions that are off-limits to others                

--

We approve reasonable things too quickly, while counterintuitive ideas are frequently treated with suspicion. Suggest cutting the price of a failing product, and your boringly rational suggestion will be approved without question, but suggest renaming it and you’ll be put through grueling PowerPoint presentations, research groups, multivariate analysis and God knows what else* – and all because your idea isn’t conventionally logical.                

--

‘There are two key steps that a mathematician uses. 1) He uses intuition to guess the right problem and the right solution and then 2) logic to prove it.’                

--

Bullmore notes that we tend to frown on those who admit their debt to intuition as opposed to carefully planned experiment.                

--

The argumentative hypothesis* suggests reason arose in the human brain not to inform our actions and beliefs, but to explain and defend them to others. In other words, it is an adaptation necessitated by our being a highly social species. 

We may use reason to detect lying in others, to resolve disputes, to attempt to influence other people or to explain our actions in retrospect, but it seems not to play the decisive role in individual decision-making. 

In my view, this theory has much to commend it. For one thing, it explains why individuals use reason so sparingly, selectively and above all self-servingly. It explains why we are good at contriving reasons for positions we already hold, or for decisions we have already made. And it explains confirmation bias, which leads people to seek out and absorb only that information which supports an existing belief. It also explains ‘adaptive preference formation’, where we change our perception of reality in order to depict ourselves in a better light.                

--

Today, the principal activity of any publicly held company is rarely the creation of products to satisfy a market need. Management attention is instead largely directed towards the invention of plausible-sounding efficiency narratives to satisfy financial analysts, many of whom know nothing about the businesses they claim to analyze, beyond what they can read on a spreadsheet. There is no need to prove that your cost-saving works empirically, as long as it is consistent with standard economic theory.                

--

It is a never-mentioned, slightly embarrassing but nevertheless essential facet of free market capitalism that it does not care about reasons – in fact it will often reward lucky idiots. You can be a certifiable lunatic with an IQ of 80, but if you stumble blindly on an underserved market niche at the right moment, you will be handsomely rewarded. Equally you can have all the MBAs money can buy and, if you launch your genius idea a year too late (or too early), you will fail.                

--

Truly free markets trade efficiency for market-tested innovation that is heavily reliant on luck.                

--

The advertising agency J. Walter Thompson used to set a test for aspiring copywriters. One of the questions was simple: 

‘Here are two identical 25-cent coins. Sell me the one on the right.’ 

One successful candidate understood the idea of alchemy. ‘I’ll take the right-hand coin and dip it in Marilyn Monroe’s bag. Then I’ll sell you a genuine 25-cent coin as owned by Marilyn Monroe.’                

--

No one in public life believes in magic, or trusts those who purvey it. If you propose any solution where the gain in perceived value outweighs the attendant expenditure in money, time, effort or resources, people either don’t believe you, or worse, they think you are somehow cheating them. This is why marketing doesn’t get any credit in business – when it generates magic, it is more socially acceptable to attribute the resulting success to logistics or cost-control.                

--

The reason the alchemists gave up in the Middle Ages was because they were looking at the problem the wrong way – they had set themselves the impossible task of trying to turn lead into gold, but had got it into their heads that the value of something lies solely in what it is. This was a false assumption, because you don’t need to tinker with atomic structure to make lead as valuable as gold – all you need to do is to tinker with human psychology so that it feels as valuable as gold. At which point, who cares that it isn’t actually gold?                

--

One contention in this book is that nearly all really successful businesses, as much as they pretend to be popular for rational reasons, owe most of their success to having stumbled on a psychological magic trick, sometimes unwittingly. Google, Dyson, Uber, Red Bull, Diet Coke, McDonald’s, Just Eat, Apple, Starbucks and Amazon have all deliberately or accidentally happened on a form of mental alchemy.                

--

Preoccupied as they were with the hopeless idea of ‘transmutation’ – the transformation of one element into another – the alchemists failed to experiment with the rebranding of lead.                

--

A great deal of the effectiveness of advertising derives from its power to direct attention to favorable aspects of an experience, in order to change the experience for the better.                

...

I have always thought, for instance, that the word ‘downsizing’, which is used not only as a euphemism for redundancies, but in another sense refers to the voluntary decision by ‘empty nesters’ to move to a smaller and more manageable home, is a very useful coinage. It allows older people in needlessly large homes to portray their move to a smaller house as a choice born out of preference, rather than – as it may otherwise be assumed to be – a compromise born of financial necessity. 

Create a name, and you’ve created a norm.                

--

Reciprocation, reputation and pre-commitment signaling are the three big mechanisms that underpin trust.                

--

What keeps the relationship honest and mutually beneficial is nothing other than the prospect of repetition. In game theory, this prospect of repetition is known as ‘continuation probability.’           

--

To borrow the language of the Michelin Guide, a flower can be ‘vaut l’étape’, ‘vaut le détour’ or ‘vaut le voyage’; ‘worth stopping at’, ‘worth going out of your way for’ or ‘a destination in itself’.                

--

Conversations about the marketing of brands tend to focus on hair-splitting distinctions between fairly good products. We often forget that, without this assurance of quality, there simply isn’t enough trust for markets to function at all, which means that perfectly good ideas can fail. Branding isn’t just something to add to great products – it’s essential to their existence.                

--

Not only do people not know what they want, they don’t even know why they like the things they buy.                

--

The only way you can discover what people really want (their ‘revealed preferences’, in economic parlance) is through seeing what they actually pay for under a variety of different conditions, in a variety of contexts.                

--

The intriguing thing about Uber as an innovation was that no one really asked for it before it existed. Its success lay in a couple of astute psychological hacks: the fact that no money changes hands during a trip is one of the most powerful – it makes using it feel like a service rather than a transaction.                

--

Credit card companies have discovered this already, with promises like ‘Apply now and get approval within 12 hours’ – they found, through testing, accident or experimentation, that this made a difference to people’s keenness to respond.                

--

It seems rather like the lesson that is taught to aspiring journalists: ‘Dog Bites Man’ is not news, but ‘Man Bites Dog’ is. Meaning is disproportionately conveyed by things that are unexpected or illogical, while narrowly logical things convey no information at all. And this brings us full circle, to the explanation of costly signalling.                

--

... Joel’s 50-year-old theory concerning brand preference. The idea, most simply expressed, is this: ‘People do not choose Brand A over Brand B because they think Brand A is better, but because they are more certain that it is good.’                

...

Imagine you’re looking at two televisions. Both seem to be equal in size, picture quality and functionality. One is manufactured by Samsung, while the other is manufactured by a brand you’ve never heard of – let’s call it Wangwei – and costs £200 less. Ideally you would like to buy the best television you can, but avoiding buying a television that turns out to be terrible is more important. It is for the second quality and not the first that Samsung earns its £200, and you are absolutely right to pay for the name in this case.                

--

Eventually the Dutch compiled a sort of phrasebook, which translates British English into Dutch English. 

What the British say // What foreigners understand // What the British mean

I hear what you say // He accepts my point of view // I disagree and do not want to discuss it further 

With the greatest respect // He is listening to me // You are an idiot 

That’s not bad // That’s poor // That’s good 

That is a very brave proposal // He thinks I have courage // You are insane 

Quite good // Quite good // A bit disappointing 

I would suggest // Think about his idea, but I should do what I like // Do it or be prepared to justify                

--

In the same way, you cannot describe someone’s behavior based on what you see, or what you think they see, because what determines their behavior is what they think they are seeing.                

--

It won’t surprise you to know that I am skeptical about the promise of ‘big data’, which is frequently promoted as though it were some kind of panacea. Like many things that emerge from the technology sector, we become so drunk on the early possible benefit of a technology that we forget to calculate the second-order problems.* The evangelists of big data imply that ‘big’ equals ‘good’, yet it by no means follows that more data will lead to decisions that are better or more ethical and fair.                

...

To use the analogy of the needle in the haystack, more data does increase the number of needles, but it also increases the volume of hay, as well as the frequency of false needles – things we will believe are significant when really they aren’t. The risk of spurious correlations, ephemeral correlations, confounding variables or confirmation bias can lead to more dumb decisions than insightful ones, with the data giving us a confidence in these decisions that is simply not warranted.                

--

All big data comes from the same place: the past.                

--

My argument is not that alchemy is always reliable, ethical or beneficial. Far from it – it is simply that we should not recoil from testing alchemical solutions because they do not fit with our reductionist ideas about how the world works.                

--

We have adopted a similarly pragmatic approach in proposals to reduce the amount of uneaten supermarket food thrown out by consumers once it passes a best-before date. Again, we didn’t concentrate on the reasons people shouldn’t waste food, but instead on ways to make unwasteful behavior easier to adopt. Our suggestions have included such childishly simple solutions as including the day of the week on ‘Use By’ and ‘Best Before’ dates on packaging. ‘Use by Friday, 12/11/17’ is a much more useful reminder than a numerical date.* As we have seen in this section, it is only the behavior that matters, not the reasons for adopting it. Give people a reason and they may not supply the behavior; but give people a behavior and they’ll have no problem supplying the reasons themselves.                

--

The marketer’s life can be difficult and lonely. Typically, most of a company’s management will have the mentality of the air traffic controller, with a love of the obvious, whereas the marketer needs to be more like Kramer, with a fear of the obvious.                

--

[lindyhunt]

The Best of B2B Marketing Content: 10 Examples

Here at HubSpot, some of the most awe-inspiring moments take place when we get to take new products and features for a test drive. We transform, if it's even imaginable, into even bigger geeks than we normally are, squealing with the excitement typically reserved for iPhone launches and new seasons of Netflix series.

But alas -- this glee is caused by software we use every day at work, and will eventually get to share with other marketers.

Many B2B marketers have seen B2C content at least once and asked, "Why do they get to have all the fun?" But the moments like the one we described above are the ones that remind us: B2B companies are just as passionate about their products as B2C companies are. And for every B2B product, there are even more B2B users out there looking for information, inspiration, and knowledge to provide them with solutions.

The point? No marketing, including content, is uninteresting if you look at it certain ways.

Done right, B2B content marketing can certainly match -- and sometimes, maybe even rival -- the creativity and appeal of the best B2C ones. And we want to recognize the brands that are breaking that mold and creating great content that grows fervent, dedicated audiences.

Below, you'll find a few of our favorites, all with their own B2B marketing strategies that you can take with you.

10 Exceptional B2B Content Marketing Examples

1. CB Insights: Newsletter

What It Does Well

There are two things I love about the CB Insights newsletter. First, it's surprisingly funny (the subject lines alone make it worth it). Second, you learn a lot just by reading the newsletter, no need to click through a bunch of links.”

- Janessa Lantz, HubSpot Senior Marketing Manager

We love how this newsletter illustrates the willingness of CB Insights to not take itself too seriously. Yes, it shares some of the finest insights on technology, venture capital (VC), and emerging businesses, but it does so with fun images that ultimately relate back to the subject -- e.g., the above photo of Oprah that’s been adapted as a meme, since, well, that was the topic of the newsletter.

But the messaging remains relevant, even among the hint of silliness. After all, CB Insights designs technology for people in the VC space, so it’s tasked with creating content that will appeal to a broad audience: customers, prospective customers, tech enthusiasts, and investors. And so, under such subject lines as “so sad: tough to have a VC dad,” it includes relevant data. Yes, gifs are hilarious -- but in some contexts, they’re also worth $147 million.

Takeaway for Marketers: Remember Your Buyer's Goals

When you’re dying to create truly unique, cutting-edge content, it’s easy to stray from your organization’s mission and focus.

So, while it’s great to think outside of the box, use clever subject lines, or even write every email with an overarching humorous tone -- keep it relevant and include the information that the people reading it signed up to receive in the first place. Then, keep it human.

2. Mattermark: Raise the Bar

What It Does Well

Raise the Bar rounds up the best stories about a variety of different industries, giving me a great snapshot of trends to watch and news stories to follow without having to search for them myself."

- Sophia Bernazzani, Editor, HubSpot Customer Success Blog

One of the best things about well-curated content -- especially the kind that pertains to your line of work -- is that it eliminates a lot of work. Keeping up with news and trends is never easy when you’ve already got a full plate, so when someone else is able to hand-pick the things you need to know, it can feel like you’ve struck gold.

That’s what Raise the Bar does, by compiling a “daily digest of timely, must-read posts on sales, marketing and growth engineering.” And, that was the intent all along. In a 2016 blog post announcing the launch of the newsletter, Mattermark’s Co-founder and CEO, Danielle Morrill, wrote, “We’re turning our focus toward sifting through the mountains of content out there around sales, marketing, and growth to help the community of DOERS who grow companies.”

Takeaway for Marketers: Educate Your Buyers

Think about the problems that your product or service already aims to solve for customers. Then, turn that into relevant content that’s going to both save time for and inform your audience -- and make it easy for them to access it.

3. MYOB: Tax Time

What It Does Well

MYOB, a provider of business management solutions in Australia and New Zealand, helps companies manage their finances, in part by connecting them with bookkeepers and financial services professionals. It has two main buyer personas:

Small businesses that are just learning the ropes

More established companies that need greater insight into all facets of their operations.

Each audience has its own set of concerns and corresponding hub of information on MYOB.com -- and MYOB has built a B2B content marketing strategy for each one that shows how much it understands its customers.

MYOB recognizes that many businesses are figuring out accounting and financial decisions as they grow, so it’s created content that positions the brand as a go-to resource to help those businesses navigate each stage of their development. The Tax Time center, for example, is angled to fit the needs of both customer groups, providing tips for those just starting out, and guides for breaking through new stages of development.

Takeaway for Marketers: Grow With Your Buyers

When you begin to brainstorm and map out ideas for content, ask yourself, “Do I really understand my audience?” If you have any doubts as to how the idea will benefit or be useful to your audience, the answer might be “no” -- and that’s okay. Like everything else, audiences (and people) evolve, so it’s okay to go back to the drawing board in instances like these for a refresh.

4. Unbounce: Page Fights (R.I.P.)

What It Does Well

If you’ve ever seen a growth marketer on the heels of a successful optimization experiment, you know that her energy is electric. Unbounce, a landing page software company based in Vancouver, understands that excitement and decided to leverage it to create an engaging microsite, Page Fights, in collaboration with optimization company Conversion XL.

The project came to a close after one year, but during its existence, Page Fights contained live streams of marketing optimization expert panels who critiqued landing pages in real time. It was content that expanded far beyond the written word -- and that was one thing that made it so great.

Sure, Unbounce has a successful blog, but it saw Page Fights as an opportunity to expand beyond that copy. It knew that the web -- especially within marketing and web design -- was becoming increasingly crowded with content. To address that, it diversified the format of its expertise, to keep its audience engaged and learning.

Takeaway for Marketers: Diversify Your Channels

The internet is only going to become more crowded. And as the human attention span dwindles, that makes it even more important to create content that engages and maintains your audience’s attention.

So while we don’t recommend abandoning blogs completely -- after all, written content is still vital to SEO -- we do emphasize the importance of diversifying content formats. Marketers who incorporate video into their content strategies, for example, have seen 49% faster revenue growth than those who don’t. And remember that tip to “keep it human” we mentioned earlier? That’s a great thing about live video in particular -- it can help portray brands (and their people) as candid and genuine.

5. Deloitte Insights

What It Does Well

Deloitte is a professional services company specializing in consulting, tech, auditing, and more. It works with a massive cross-section of industries, from government agencies to life sciences -- and that broad range of knowledge is a major selling point. That’s why creating informed, useful content for individual, specialized audiences is core to its marketing strategy.

But Deloitte has also used that wealth of knowledge to position itself as a resource for those who want to know what it knows. So, among its specialized hubs are educational content centers, including Deloitte Insights (formerly branded Deloitte University Press).

Much like some of the other remarkable B2B content we’ve come across, it curates not only different pieces of highly helpful content -- but also a variety of content formats. From blog posts, to webcasts, to podcasts, Deloitte Insights has a bit of everything for those who want to learn about its specialties and the industries it works with.

Takeaway for Marketers: Separate Your Buyer Personas

Creating a content strategy to please a wide-scale audience like Deloitte’s is challenging. It can quickly become unfocused. But if your company has a number of specialties, creating content microsites for each of them is one way to keep that information organized, discoverable, and easy to navigate.

Plus, it can never hurt to establish your brand as a go-to resource. So, as you create these content hubs, consider adding a “knowledge center” among them that’s dedicated to teaching your audience the valuable things it wants to learn.

6. First Round Magazines

What It Does Well

Here’s another example of a brand that does a great job of leveraging different categories of knowledge. First Round, an early-stage VC company, recognized the knowledge among entrepreneurs and leaders that wasn’t being shared -- knowledge that could be highly beneficial to their peers -- and created the First Round Review as a place for it to be shared. It serves, reads the manifesto, to liberate the ideas and expertise that are “trapped in other people's heads.”

But liberating that much-untapped knowledge can lead to the same problem we alluded to above -- an unfocused mass of content that makes it difficult to discover exactly what you’re looking for. That’s why First Round organized the Review into a collection of nine online magazines, each specializing in a different aspect of building a business.

Takeaway for Marketers: Work With Thought Leaders

If you’ve ever wondered how to leverage the wealth of knowledge outside of your organization -- and inside your professional network -- here’s a great example.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to the entrepreneurs and leaders you’ve met, or simply just admire, to figure out how they can work with you to create content with teachable experiences that your audience will value. Sharing useful, relatable first-hand accounts conveys empathy, which helps to invoke trust among readers.

7. NextView Ventures: Better Everyday

What It Does Well

We absolutely love stumbling across B2B companies with an active presence on Medium. A great example is VC firm NextView Ventures' Better Everyday, a Medium publication that focuses on “stories, analyses & resources to help seed-stage founders redesign the everyday.”

But why would NextView want to create an entirely separate blog that isn’t even on its website? Well, it’s an exercise in creating off-site content: the material you own but doesn’t live on your website. When executed correctly, it can give publishers a huge boost in discoverability, variety, and quality, especially when making use of a highly popular platform like Medium.

Because Better Everyday isn’t attached to the company’s main URL, it provides an opportunity for NextView to experiment with different tones, voices, and stories -- all from a variety of experts that might already be using Medium to discover and contribute unique content. Plus, with Medium’s built-in ability for people to recommend, highlight, and search internally for relevant content, it makes the work published there that much more shareable.

Takeaway for Marketers: Publish Off-Domain Content

Take advantage of the availability of off-site content platforms. As my colleague, Sam Mallikarjunan, writes in “Why Medium Works,” it can take up to six months of consistent publishing on your company’s blog before it gains significant traction. (And we’re not discouraging that -- stick with it, and find ways to supplement those efforts.) But off-site content diversifies your audience by engaging readers who might not have otherwise found your website.

Medium, for example, connects your content with the people most likely to read it. Plus, you’re creating a publication on a platform that comes with a built-in audience of at least 6.3 million users.

8. Wistia: Instagram

  Want to capture glorious shots like this with a DSLR camera? Head over to the Library for everything you need to know (dog sold separately). Link in bio!

A post shared by Wistia (@wistia) on Apr 24, 2017 at 11:58am PDT

What It Does Well

At risk of sounding like a broken record, we can’t emphasize enough the importance of B2B brands maintaining a human element. That’s why we like it when companies use social media channels to give audiences a “look inside” at the people who make the great products and services they love.

Wistia, a video hosting platform, does that particularly well by sharing visual content on Instagram that lifts the curtain on its people -- and dogs. It not only aligns with its brand -- after all, the company does provide technology to businesses that want hosting solutions for their visual content -- but it’s also just smart. Among its other advantages, visual content can help boost a viewer’s retention of things like brand information.

Takeaway for Marketers: Incorporate Visual Content

Please, please, please don’t neglect to incorporate visuals into your content strategy. Of course, having a presence on visually-focused channels like Instagram and YouTube is vital -- but when it comes to your written content, don’t afraid to use visuals there, as well. After all, articles with an image once every 75-100 words got double the number of social shares than articles with fewer images.

But if you can also create content that aligns with the core of your product or service, that’s also great. As we mentioned before, Wistia creates visual content technology -- so it makes sense that it would have unique visual content. Identify what your business does particularly well, and then make the most use of the channel that best aligns with your strengths.

9. Zendesk Engineering

What It Does Well

Yes -- more offsite content. This time, it’s from Zendesk, a maker of customer service software that’s done something unique with its Medium publication, Zendesk Engineering.

Zendesk might be an expert in the solutions provided by its product, but behind that product is a chorus of highly skilled experts -- the people who build and engineer the software. The company realized that there’s an audience to be tapped that’s seeking insights and expertise on the technical side of the product, so it used that to build an entirely independent content property.

Takeaway for Marketers: Tell Your Brand Story

Dig beneath the surface of the solutions your company provides. You offer solutions -- but what is your process? What have you learned that makes you do what you do so well, and how did you get there?

Sure, topics like engineering might be traditionally “unsexy.” But when leveraged and communicated in a storytelling manner, they can make for remarkable content.

10. Hexagon: Annual Report

Image via App Annie

What It Does Well

Who says written content needs to be two-dimensional?

For Hexagon, an industrial IT solutions provider, "AR" doesn't just stand for annual report. With that in mind, the company recently "augmented" a presentation to its investors in a creative way.

Hexagon used augmented reality (AR) to spruce up their written company report, giving investors a more interactive experience when learning the latest updates on the company. How does it work? A mobile app, based on technology from Samsung and zSpace, displays a virtual demonstration of a product when readers hold their mobile device over a "trigger image" of that product within the report.

Takeaway for Marketers: Challenge Your Buyers

It's easy to feel limited by your medium as you create content -- especially for a business audience who you've all agreed is comfortable with that medium.

But in order for content to convert readers and incite growth, it needs to occasionally disrupt its audience's point of view. A company doesn't work for its content; content works for its company. If you need to say something that a blog alone can't, the business demands that you make it work -- whether that means starting a YouTube channel or seeing how you can integrate an AR tool into your next ebook.

And the List Goes On

We’re optimistic that the digital realm is full of strong B2B content marketing efforts -- and, we want to hear about them. But even more than that, we want to hear how these examples inspire you. As they show, there's a world of content opportunities out there, just waiting for creative B2B marketers to take on.

[megamanishashekhawat-blog]

black magic solution

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Muslim Black Magic as the name implies is a kind of spell to create solution of your problems with the help of black magic. This spell is specially created in Islamic religion. All over the world Islamic black magic is so powerful and famous because of their finest and quick result. It is known that black magic is done to harm peoples and to destroy their life but muslim black magic is done to solve all issues of your life and if you have any type of problem in the world then muslim black magic will help you..

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दिमाग से चिन्ता हटाने का वशीकरण टोटका

शादी विवाह में विघ्न न पडने देने के लिये वशीकरण टोटका

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[webanalytics]

Digital Analytics + Marketing Career Advice: Your Now, Next, Long Plan

The rapid pace of innovation and the constantly exploding collection of possibilities is a major contributor to the fun we all have in digital jobs. There is never a boring moment, there is never time when you can’t do something faster or smarter.

The tiny downside of this is that our parents likely never had to invest as much in constant education, experimentation and self-driven investment in core skills. They never had to worry that they have to be in a persistent forward motion… sometimes just to stay current.

This reality powers my impostor syndrome, and (yet?) it is the reason that I love working in every dimension of digital. We are at an inflection point in humanity’s evolution where in small and big ways, we can actually change the world.

With that context, this post is all about career management in the digital space. Like this blog, it will be particularly relevant for those who are in digital analytics and digital marketing. I would offer that the higher-order-bits in each of the three sections will provide valuable food-for-thought for anyone in a digital role.

The post has three clusters of advice. The first two are from editions of my newsletter, The Marketing – Analytics Intersect (it goes out weekly, and is now my primary publishing channel, sign up!). The third section was sparked by a question a friend who works at a digital agency asked: Will I lose my job to automation soon? (The answer was, yes.)

The Now section provides advice on how investing in growing your Analytical Thinking will contribute to greater success in the role you are in. The Next section provides advice on what you should be doing to invest in yourself to get ready for the depth and breadth change Artificial Intelligence is going to bestow upon us (regardless of your business role). The Long section shares a thought experiment I want you to undertake to figure out your career three years from now.

1. The Now Career Plan: Analytics Experience vs. Analytical Thinking

2. The Next Career Plan: Prepping For An AI-First World

3. The Long Career Plan: Automation & Your Value To A Company

One more change reflective of the times we live in… Your employer used to be responsible for your career, this is for the most part no longer true. Your employer would send you to trainings to help push your career forward, this is for the most part no longer true. Your employer/manager would help you figure out the skills you can develop, this is for the most part no longer true. It is now all on you. Hence… Take control.

Ready?

The Now Career Plan: Analytics Experience vs. Analytical Thinking

Check the requirements listed in any digital analytics job and you'll notice a long laundry list looking for analytics experience.

Years of having used tool x. Years and years of practice with R or "Big Data." Years of proficiency in analyzing m campaigns for n channels resulting in production of z reports.

When you go to the interview, the hiring company will proceed to ask questions that test your competency in the listed job requirements.

This is normal.

Reflecting on my experience, it is not sufficient.

Test for analytics experience AND explore the level of analytical thinking the job candidate possesses.

Analytical thinking is 6,451 times more crucial in the long-term success of the candidate and the value they'll add to your company.

Analytical Thinking: Skills, Interviewing, Value.

Analytical thinking is a collection of skills.

It is creative problem solving. It is working systematically and logically when dealing with complex tasks. It is exploring alternatives from multiple angles to find a solution. It is a brilliant evaluation of pros and cons, and achieving the balance that is right for that specific moment. It is always knowing that the answer to what's two plus two is always in what context? It is being able to recognize patterns. It is knowing that every worthy life decision is a multivariate regression equation (hence the quest to identify all the variables in that equation and their weights). It is the possession of critical thinking abilities. And, most of all it is being able to seek and see the higher order bits.

Beautiful, right?

If I have the immense privilege of interviewing you, expect us to spend a lot of time on the elements mentioned above.

One sample strategy: Expect that I'll ask open-ended questions (If a company has 90% Reach on TV, why the heck do they need digital?). Then, regardless of what you say I'll politely but forcefully push back, to explore the depth and breadth of analytical thinking you bring to the table.

If you hire strong analytical thinkers, of any background, you are hiring people who will be adaptable, who'll grow and flex with your organization and needs. They'll have the mental agility to think smart and move fast. They'll ask child-like simple questions that'll lay bare your complex strategic challenges. Hire them. And, if they don't know tool x… You can teach them which buttons to press.

Caring and Feeding Your Analytical Thinking.

If you are an analytical thinker, there are many ways in which you can keep feeding and stretching the synapses in your brain. There is always more you can learn.

In a business context, request an hour to talk to people three levels above you in the organization. Ask them what they worry about, ask them what they are solving for, ask them how they measure success, ask them what are two things on the horizon that they are excited about. So on and so forth. You'll see things very differently, and you'll think very differently when you go back to work.

I'd mentioned being able to look at every situation from multiple angles. (Think of the famous bullet time scene in the Matrix.) Hence, a personal strategy of mine is to look well outside my area of expertise to help me improve my analytical thinking capabilities.

I'm love reading decisions of the US Supreme Court. SCOTUSblog FTW!

The Supreme Court deals with situations that are insanely complex – even when they appear to be stunningly simple on the surface. There are so many lessons to be learned.

My favorites are the ones I massively disagree with. Citizens United is one such example. I could not possibly disagree with it more. Yet reading through the deep details helped me see the multiple facets being explored, the reasoning used by the other side. I learned a lot.

I go in open-minded, and at times have my mind changed. A good example of this Justice Scalia's opinion in Gonzales v. Raich and the use of the Commerce Clause. And, he was not a man with whom I have overlapping views on anything. I appreciate him stretching my mind in this case.

Optimal Starting SCOTUS Starting Points.

If you would like to pursue my personal strategy, here are a collection of cases to use as starting points.

Some cases are very dear to me, I truly love them, there is a lot to learn from them as you explore the back and forth of the debate, the majority opinion and the dissenting one (or ones).

Loving v. Virginia is close to my heart, it is the reason I can legally marry my wife. It was just 50 years go!

Obergefell v. Hodges brought immense to our family as we celebrated the right of all Americans to marry. Justice Kennedy's opinion is a thing of beauty. And, it is also useful to read Justices Scalia and Thomas' strong and powerful dissents.

Texas v. Johnson said that prohibition on desecration of the American flag was a violation of the right to free speech. Of the many wonderful things about America, the First Amendment is at the top and distinctly unique. The court looked beyond the jingoistic distractions the flag always attracts, and protected what's critical.

As I'd mentioned above, there is much to learn from cases that are heartbreaking

Dred Scott v. Sandford held that African Americans, free or slaves, could not be considered American citizens and undid the Missouri Compromise. It contained the infamous quote "[black men] had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Buck v. Bell is perhaps the one that is a deep, deep source of pain for me, it a decision that still stands. The court upheld forced sterilizations for those with "intellectual disabilities" and contained the despicable phrase "three generations of imbeciles are enough."

Korematsu v. United States, legalized the shameful internment of American citizens with any Japanese ancestry. It is still on the books, and places extraordinary power in the President of the US to do what they want to people who might not look like "Americans." People like me.

Each case, regardless of if I agree with the opinion or disagree, helps push my thinking. It makes me a better analyst, a better employee, a better start-up founder.

I've added a differentiated collection of links above to take you to sources, I hope they'll help feed your analytical thinking.

For the Busy Human On The Go, An Alternative.

Given everything above, I absolutely LOVE the More Perfect podcast.

Jad Abumrad and his team are magnificent storytellers. For each episode, they take one case and explore it from multiple directions. They are entertaining, engaging and deeply informative.

Season one covered seven scintillating cases. I found the episodes that shared how SCOTUS was formed and got its power amazing.

Season two kicked of with… Korematsu! I thought I knew all angles of this case. Yet, towards the end you'll hear two loud silences in a conversation with Judge Richard Posner. Make sure you hear what he says. I have profound respect for Judge Posner, he is brilliant. And, in those two moments, he both made me deeply uncomfortable and appreciate complexity.

More Perfect on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play.

Bringing It All Back To Analytics.

The latest episode (as of Oct 11th) is "Who's Gerry and Why Is He So Bad At Drawing Maps."

The problem is simple. In Wisconsin Republicans in power massively gerrymandered voting districts (something the Democrats also do when in power). Unlike the past where little sophistication was applied, this time sophisticated algorithms and computers were brought into play. Resulting in more effective gerrymandering.

End result: Democrats won 53% of the votes but only 39% of the seats.

You might think: OMG! CRAZY BEANS! What happened to one person one vote!

Well, the case was heard by the Supreme Court last week. And, everything's quite complicated (analytical thinking!). Listen to the episode for that.

What's even more material for us is that Justice Kennedy wants to know how can he figure out that a district has been "too" gerrymandered. There is no real standard, nothing the Justices can use.

Math to the rescue!

Nicholas Stephanopoulos and Eric McGhee created an Efficiency Gap formula to assess how bad the gerrymandering was. (More here, PDF.)

I won't spoil it for you, let Professor Moon Duchin explain it to in the podcast. It is a thing of beauty.

You'll learn how to create smarter formulas in your job, how to solve complicated and ambiguous challenges with simple assumptions, and how to not to grow too close to your formulas – rather evolve them over time to be smarter.

In 23 mins, it will make you a better Analyst.

If you follow the overall guidance in this section, you’ll continue to invest and grow the one skill you’ll need in every digital career: Sophisticated analytical thinking.

The Next Career Plan: Prepping For An AI-First World

Even with all the hype related to all things Artificial Intelligence, I feel people are not taking the topic seriously enough. That the big, broad implications for the very near future are not causing us to sit up, take notice, and change our strategies (personal and professional).

Or, maybe I'm just too deep into this stuff. :)

I had two big ah-ha moments that have changed my view if humans can be competitive in any field compared to what technology will spring forth. I call the two elementsl Collective Continuous Learning and Complete Day One Knowledge, they are harbingers of exciting possibilities for what we can do with AI (and it to us).

For more detail on that, and if humans are doomed (yes, no, yes totally) please read: The Artificial Intelligence Opportunity: A Camel to Cars Moment

The topic of AI is vast, and I’m not even including all the layers and flavors. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. My heartfelt recommendation is that every professional should be curious about AI and try to stay abreast with as many new dimensions as they can. After the first few months, you’ll find your own sweetspot that’ll catch your fancy.

Here are the collection of books, videos, people and learning opportunities from my sweetspot…

Books.

I want to recommend three books. None focusses on digital marketing or analytics. Each tackles humans and the possibilities for humans. Hence they’ve had a profound impact on my thinking about humanity’s future (and via that route, my career plans).

1. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari.

The span of Mr. Harari's thinking is truly grand, and he's a great storyteller. I am less pessimistic than Mr. Harari about the 300 year outcome (as you'll read in my post above on AI), but he's influenced my thinking deeply.

2. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom.

AI will birth numerous incredible solutions for humanity, but the most magical bits will come from Artificial General Intelligence. Some people think of it as Superintelligence. Mr. Bostrom does a fantastic job of exploring the possibilities. Let me know if you get scared or excited by the end. :)

3. Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark

I love the way Mr. Tegmark writes, and there is something magical about his ability to distill all living things, you, me, watermelons, to up quarks, down quarks and nand gates! I was so inspired by his writing that I wrote to him my personal prediction for humanity looking 300 years out.

Videos.

Current development of Intelligence is in silos, I'm glad when someone pulls all the experts from around the world in an attempt to guide humanity's efforts.

The Future of Life Institute hosted a conference in Asilomar in Jan 2017 with just such a purpose. The entire list of videos is well worth watching, prioritize the individual ones: Beneficial AI 2017

If you can only watch one…

1. Science or Fiction?

The content is great and it is pretty amazing to see these crazy brilliant group on one stage.

There is one other video I want you to watch, from the 2015 edition.

2. Robotics, AI, and the Macro-Economy

There is mostly a negative vibe about the combination of robotics and AI. The brilliant Jeffrey Sachs systematically presents context you'll be glad you've heard.

There is a ton of video content on YouTube. A go to source for me is whoever is curating the Artificial Intelligence AI channel.

People.

In any space that is having the kind of exponential growth like AI, your best bet is to find people who trust and listen to what they are saying/doing.

We are blessed with a ton of experts, practitioners and futurists. I encourage you to curate your own list.

Here are the ones I follow as closely as I can: Sebastian Thrun, Jürgen Schmidhuber, Demis Hassabis, and Andrew Ng.

I watch videos of all their talks on YouTube or tune in to livestreams of their presentations. I read articles they write. I have alerts for them. Luckily they are so darn busy, they pace their public speaking/writing. :)

You can follow their work using strategies you currently use for others you stay in touch with.

Learning.

If you are slightly technically oriented and would like to start your journey of acquiring technical knowledge in the space, Udacity is a great place to go.

All three of these courses are free:

1. Intro to Machine Learning

2. Machine Learning

3. Deep Learning

If you are deeply technically oriented, you already know where to go and don’t need my pointers!

I’m sure you’ll notice I’ve not given you specific advice for your next career move. One reason: We are in a moment where each of us has to know all the changes coming, all the possibilities arising, and then figure out that answer for ourselves.

The above books, videos, people and lessons will help you discover the right answer for yourself.

The Long Career Plan: Automation & Your Value To A Company

People are scared of automation.

It is logical. The AI revolution will bring a ton of automation that will eliminate current white-collar jobs in large numbers.

Yet, by the end of this thought experiment, you might see that looking out over the nest 25-30 years, we can deal with automation (/elimination of our current jobs).

This thought experiment is for both Marketers and Analysts.

Get in front of a whiteboard. Draw a decent size square box on it.

Today, almost all the work you do is inside that box.

For Digital Marketers, it is finding keywords or websites, setting targeting parameters, building ads, setting bids, adding rules, building landing pages etc. etc.

For Digital Analysts, it is creating data collection mechanisms, writing queries, creating reports, doing segmentation, creating rules, identifying business focus areas based on data etc. etc.

Here's the thought: If tomorrow everything you currently do, inside that box, is completely automated… What's your value?

Pause.

Think about it carefully in terms of personal implications.

For the bravest among you, think of what's the value of your Agency/Company.

If you are anything like me, you are super-scared. Some of you are likely super-excited as well.

Don't be scared. Take action.

It is not as crazy as you think to envision that you could be completely automated out. In small pieces this has already happened.

Media example: Campaigns to create, target and deliver results for driving app downloads is now almost entirely automated.

Analytics example: There are already buttons in your tools that automate finding of anomalies in your data that your leaders most need to pay attention to. Eliminating the need for the known knowns and automatically providing the known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

An example that combines the both for even more effective automation: With smart creative, smart bidding, and smart targeting there is no need for any human to touch AdWords or soon a whole lot of your Display campaigns. The results of Data Driven Attribution modeling, which use data from *all* digital campaigns, can now be directly plugged into AdWords which means without any reporting/analysis the platform will automatically optimize for the highest profit for your business – with no human involvement. This is not the future, it is Nov 2017.

Back to the whiteboard.

On top of the box with the stuff you do, write the word Automated.

Ponder now what's your value.

You'll see there are two areas where you can add value. The area before the box, the area after the box.

If you are a Marketer…

You can shift to taking more ownership of the inputs that go into your current job (which remember is now automated). Shift to a responsibility that requires a deeper understanding of your Prospects and Customers at a human level. Now, because of that beautiful knowledge, take ownership of the entire process of identifying the optimal creative assets required for any great Marketing campaign. Then, step up and move to the other side of the box… Own the use and deployment of large scale machine learning services to understand every human, which results in creating the simplest most meaningful experience across all digital touch-points. And then… I'm taking you so far away from your current box… expand the outcomes you own from just the transactional to building deeper years-long beyond-pimpy relationships with your customers.

And suddenly…

You hate the freaking box you are in as a Marketer today. You want to expand your responsibility to own these deeply meaningful things that Machine Learning and our Deep Neural Networks won't touch for a while. You want to feel the true joy that comes from doing meaningful things like figuring out how to build relationships or unleash the full and beautiful power of amazing creative (in ads, in apps, on sites, in products), and so many more exciting things that you were born to do.

Now, you are not scared about automated. You can't wait for your current job to be automated away.

:)

I have the above scenario and the wonderful possibilities for Analysts as well. It is also very exciting, as you’ll discover when you do the whiteboarding exercise for yourself.

Now. I totally get that your entire job is not getting automated tomorrow. But, I suspect you'll be surprised though how fast that is coming. For Nurses. For Truck drivers. For Baristas. For… Everyone. Collect a handful of the smartest people you know, draw a box on a whiteboard, have a discussion.

This thought experiment is just one way to think through the implications of what’s ahead of us. In my blog post on the artificial intelligence opportunity, you’ll see another way I framed how to think this through…

The above framing is a bit more in the higher-order-bit spirit.

I recommend the thought experiment. When you’re done: Step one, have a plan. Step two, execute. Step three, joy. Step four, follow the advice in section one (Now) and section two (Next) of this blog post and start investing in the personal growth you’ll need to move to these new more joy-inducing meaningful jobs.

Your career is in your hands, and I deeply believe it is going to be bright. Seize the moment!

As always, it is your turn now.

Considering the Now moment, is there something unique you do to invest in growing your analytical thinking capabilities? How are you preparing for the Next moment, who are you reading, who are you listening to? Considering the next 25 years in our space, how far do you think automation will go? How are you approaching your personal evolution with the Long moment horizon in mind? How about your company’s?

Please share your unique perspective, challenges, and solutions via comments below.

Thanks.

Digital Analytics + Marketing Career Advice: Your Now, Next, Long Plan is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik

from Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik http://ift.tt/2kIM1Cn #Digital #Analytics #Website

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Digital Analytics + Marketing Career Advice: Your Now, Next, Long Plan

The rapid pace of innovation and the constantly exploding collection of possibilities is a major contributor to the fun we all have in digital jobs. There is never a boring moment, there is never time when you can’t do something faster or smarter.

The tiny downside of this is that our parents likely never had to invest as much in constant education, experimentation and self-driven investment in core skills. They never had to worry that they have to be in a persistent forward motion… sometimes just to stay current.

This reality powers my impostor syndrome, and (yet?) it is the reason that I love working in every dimension of digital. We are at an inflection point in humanity’s evolution where in small and big ways, we can actually change the world.

With that context, this post is all about career management in the digital space. Like this blog, it will be particularly relevant for those who are in digital analytics and digital marketing. I would offer that the higher-order-bits in each of the three sections will provide valuable food-for-thought for anyone in a digital role.

The post has three clusters of advice. The first two are from editions of my newsletter, The Marketing – Analytics Intersect (it goes out weekly, and is now my primary publishing channel, sign up!). The third section was sparked by a question a friend who works at a digital agency asked: Will I lose my job to automation soon? (The answer was, yes.)

The Now section provides advice on how investing in growing your Analytical Thinking will contribute to greater success in the role you are in. The Next section provides advice on what you should be doing to invest in yourself to get ready for the depth and breadth change Artificial Intelligence is going to bestow upon us (regardless of your business role). The Long section shares a thought experiment I want you to undertake to figure out your career three years from now.

1. The Now Career Plan: Analytics Experience vs. Analytical Thinking

2. The Next Career Plan: Prepping For An AI-First World

3. The Long Career Plan: Automation & Your Value To A Company

One more change reflective of the times we live in… Your employer used to be responsible for your career, this is for the most part no longer true. Your employer would send you to trainings to help push your career forward, this is for the most part no longer true. Your employer/manager would help you figure out the skills you can develop, this is for the most part no longer true. It is now all on you. Hence… Take control.

Ready?

The Now Career Plan: Analytics Experience vs. Analytical Thinking

Check the requirements listed in any digital analytics job and you'll notice a long laundry list looking for analytics experience.

Years of having used tool x. Years and years of practice with R or "Big Data." Years of proficiency in analyzing m campaigns for n channels resulting in production of z reports.

When you go to the interview, the hiring company will proceed to ask questions that test your competency in the listed job requirements.

This is normal.

Reflecting on my experience, it is not sufficient.

Test for analytics experience AND explore the level of analytical thinking the job candidate possesses.

Analytical thinking is 6,451 times more crucial in the long-term success of the candidate and the value they'll add to your company.

Analytical Thinking: Skills, Interviewing, Value.

Analytical thinking is a collection of skills.

It is creative problem solving. It is working systematically and logically when dealing with complex tasks. It is exploring alternatives from multiple angles to find a solution. It is a brilliant evaluation of pros and cons, and achieving the balance that is right for that specific moment. It is always knowing that the answer to what's two plus two is always in what context? It is being able to recognize patterns. It is knowing that every worthy life decision is a multivariate regression equation (hence the quest to identify all the variables in that equation and their weights). It is the possession of critical thinking abilities. And, most of all it is being able to seek and see the higher order bits.

Beautiful, right?

If I have the immense privilege of interviewing you, expect us to spend a lot of time on the elements mentioned above.

One sample strategy: Expect that I'll ask open-ended questions (If a company has 90% Reach on TV, why the heck do they need digital?). Then, regardless of what you say I'll politely but forcefully push back, to explore the depth and breadth of analytical thinking you bring to the table.

If you hire strong analytical thinkers, of any background, you are hiring people who will be adaptable, who'll grow and flex with your organization and needs. They'll have the mental agility to think smart and move fast. They'll ask child-like simple questions that'll lay bare your complex strategic challenges. Hire them. And, if they don't know tool x… You can teach them which buttons to press.

Caring and Feeding Your Analytical Thinking.

If you are an analytical thinker, there are many ways in which you can keep feeding and stretching the synapses in your brain. There is always more you can learn.

In a business context, request an hour to talk to people three levels above you in the organization. Ask them what they worry about, ask them what they are solving for, ask them how they measure success, ask them what are two things on the horizon that they are excited about. So on and so forth. You'll see things very differently, and you'll think very differently when you go back to work.

I'd mentioned being able to look at every situation from multiple angles. (Think of the famous bullet time scene in the Matrix.) Hence, a personal strategy of mine is to look well outside my area of expertise to help me improve my analytical thinking capabilities.

I'm love reading decisions of the US Supreme Court. SCOTUSblog FTW!

The Supreme Court deals with situations that are insanely complex – even when they appear to be stunningly simple on the surface. There are so many lessons to be learned.

My favorites are the ones I massively disagree with. Citizens United is one such example. I could not possibly disagree with it more. Yet reading through the deep details helped me see the multiple facets being explored, the reasoning used by the other side. I learned a lot.

I go in open-minded, and at times have my mind changed. A good example of this Justice Scalia's opinion in Gonzales v. Raich and the use of the Commerce Clause. And, he was not a man with whom I have overlapping views on anything. I appreciate him stretching my mind in this case.

Optimal Starting SCOTUS Starting Points.

If you would like to pursue my personal strategy, here are a collection of cases to use as starting points.

Some cases are very dear to me, I truly love them, there is a lot to learn from them as you explore the back and forth of the debate, the majority opinion and the dissenting one (or ones).

Loving v. Virginia is close to my heart, it is the reason I can legally marry my wife. It was just 50 years go!

Obergefell v. Hodges brought immense to our family as we celebrated the right of all Americans to marry. Justice Kennedy's opinion is a thing of beauty. And, it is also useful to read Justices Scalia and Thomas' strong and powerful dissents.

Texas v. Johnson said that prohibition on desecration of the American flag was a violation of the right to free speech. Of the many wonderful things about America, the First Amendment is at the top and distinctly unique. The court looked beyond the jingoistic distractions the flag always attracts, and protected what's critical.

As I'd mentioned above, there is much to learn from cases that are heartbreaking

Dred Scott v. Sandford held that African Americans, free or slaves, could not be considered American citizens and undid the Missouri Compromise. It contained the infamous quote "[black men] had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Buck v. Bell is perhaps the one that is a deep, deep source of pain for me, it a decision that still stands. The court upheld forced sterilizations for those with "intellectual disabilities" and contained the despicable phrase "three generations of imbeciles are enough."

Korematsu v. United States, legalized the shameful internment of American citizens with any Japanese ancestry. It is still on the books, and places extraordinary power in the President of the US to do what they want to people who might not look like "Americans." People like me.

Each case, regardless of if I agree with the opinion or disagree, helps push my thinking. It makes me a better analyst, a better employee, a better start-up founder.

I've added a differentiated collection of links above to take you to sources, I hope they'll help feed your analytical thinking.

For the Busy Human On The Go, An Alternative.

Given everything above, I absolutely LOVE the More Perfect podcast.

Jad Abumrad and his team are magnificent storytellers. For each episode, they take one case and explore it from multiple directions. They are entertaining, engaging and deeply informative.

Season one covered seven scintillating cases. I found the episodes that shared how SCOTUS was formed and got its power amazing.

Season two kicked of with… Korematsu! I thought I knew all angles of this case. Yet, towards the end you'll hear two loud silences in a conversation with Judge Richard Posner. Make sure you hear what he says. I have profound respect for Judge Posner, he is brilliant. And, in those two moments, he both made me deeply uncomfortable and appreciate complexity.

More Perfect on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play.

Bringing It All Back To Analytics.

The latest episode (as of Oct 11th) is "Who's Gerry and Why Is He So Bad At Drawing Maps."

The problem is simple. In Wisconsin Republicans in power massively gerrymandered voting districts (something the Democrats also do when in power). Unlike the past where little sophistication was applied, this time sophisticated algorithms and computers were brought into play. Resulting in more effective gerrymandering.

End result: Democrats won 53% of the votes but only 39% of the seats.

You might think: OMG! CRAZY BEANS! What happened to one person one vote!

Well, the case was heard by the Supreme Court last week. And, everything's quite complicated (analytical thinking!). Listen to the episode for that.

What's even more material for us is that Justice Kennedy wants to know how can he figure out that a district has been "too" gerrymandered. There is no real standard, nothing the Justices can use.

Math to the rescue!

Nicholas Stephanopoulos and Eric McGhee created an Efficiency Gap formula to assess how bad the gerrymandering was. (More here, PDF.)

I won't spoil it for you, let Professor Moon Duchin explain it to in the podcast. It is a thing of beauty.

You'll learn how to create smarter formulas in your job, how to solve complicated and ambiguous challenges with simple assumptions, and how to not to grow too close to your formulas – rather evolve them over time to be smarter.

In 23 mins, it will make you a better Analyst.

If you follow the overall guidance in this section, you’ll continue to invest and grow the one skill you’ll need in every digital career: Sophisticated analytical thinking.

The Next Career Plan: Prepping For An AI-First World

Even with all the hype related to all things Artificial Intelligence, I feel people are not taking the topic seriously enough. That the big, broad implications for the very near future are not causing us to sit up, take notice, and change our strategies (personal and professional).

Or, maybe I'm just too deep into this stuff. :)

I had two big ah-ha moments that have changed my view if humans can be competitive in any field compared to what technology will spring forth. I call the two elementsl Collective Continuous Learning and Complete Day One Knowledge, they are harbingers of exciting possibilities for what we can do with AI (and it to us).

For more detail on that, and if humans are doomed (yes, no, yes totally) please read: The Artificial Intelligence Opportunity: A Camel to Cars Moment

The topic of AI is vast, and I’m not even including all the layers and flavors. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. My heartfelt recommendation is that every professional should be curious about AI and try to stay abreast with as many new dimensions as they can. After the first few months, you’ll find your own sweetspot that’ll catch your fancy.

Here are the collection of books, videos, people and learning opportunities from my sweetspot…

Books.

I want to recommend three books. None focusses on digital marketing or analytics. Each tackles humans and the possibilities for humans. Hence they’ve had a profound impact on my thinking about humanity’s future (and via that route, my career plans).

1. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari.

The span of Mr. Harari's thinking is truly grand, and he's a great storyteller. I am less pessimistic than Mr. Harari about the 300 year outcome (as you'll read in my post above on AI), but he's influenced my thinking deeply.

2. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom.

AI will birth numerous incredible solutions for humanity, but the most magical bits will come from Artificial General Intelligence. Some people think of it as Superintelligence. Mr. Bostrom does a fantastic job of exploring the possibilities. Let me know if you get scared or excited by the end. :)

3. Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark

I love the way Mr. Tegmark writes, and there is something magical about his ability to distill all living things, you, me, watermelons, to up quarks, down quarks and nand gates! I was so inspired by his writing that I wrote to him my personal prediction for humanity looking 300 years out.

Videos.

Current development of Intelligence is in silos, I'm glad when someone pulls all the experts from around the world in an attempt to guide humanity's efforts.

The Future of Life Institute hosted a conference in Asilomar in Jan 2017 with just such a purpose. The entire list of videos is well worth watching, prioritize the individual ones: Beneficial AI 2017

If you can only watch one…

1. Science or Fiction?

The content is great and it is pretty amazing to see these crazy brilliant group on one stage.

There is one other video I want you to watch, from the 2015 edition.

2. Robotics, AI, and the Macro-Economy

There is mostly a negative vibe about the combination of robotics and AI. The brilliant Jeffrey Sachs systematically presents context you'll be glad you've heard.

There is a ton of video content on YouTube. A go to source for me is whoever is curating the Artificial Intelligence AI channel.

People.

In any space that is having the kind of exponential growth like AI, your best bet is to find people who trust and listen to what they are saying/doing.

We are blessed with a ton of experts, practitioners and futurists. I encourage you to curate your own list.

Here are the ones I follow as closely as I can: Sebastian Thrun, Jürgen Schmidhuber, Demis Hassabis, and Andrew Ng.

I watch videos of all their talks on YouTube or tune in to livestreams of their presentations. I read articles they write. I have alerts for them. Luckily they are so darn busy, they pace their public speaking/writing. :)

You can follow their work using strategies you currently use for others you stay in touch with.

Learning.

If you are slightly technically oriented and would like to start your journey of acquiring technical knowledge in the space, Udacity is a great place to go.

All three of these courses are free:

1. Intro to Machine Learning

2. Machine Learning

3. Deep Learning

If you are deeply technically oriented, you already know where to go and don’t need my pointers!

I’m sure you’ll notice I’ve not given you specific advice for your next career move. One reason: We are in a moment where each of us has to know all the changes coming, all the possibilities arising, and then figure out that answer for ourselves.

The above books, videos, people and lessons will help you discover the right answer for yourself.

The Long Career Plan: Automation & Your Value To A Company

People are scared of automation.

It is logical. The AI revolution will bring a ton of automation that will eliminate current white-collar jobs in large numbers.

Yet, by the end of this thought experiment, you might see that looking out over the nest 25-30 years, we can deal with automation (/elimination of our current jobs).

This thought experiment is for both Marketers and Analysts.

Get in front of a whiteboard. Draw a decent size square box on it.

Today, almost all the work you do is inside that box.

For Digital Marketers, it is finding keywords or websites, setting targeting parameters, building ads, setting bids, adding rules, building landing pages etc. etc.

For Digital Analysts, it is creating data collection mechanisms, writing queries, creating reports, doing segmentation, creating rules, identifying business focus areas based on data etc. etc.

Here's the thought: If tomorrow everything you currently do, inside that box, is completely automated… What's your value?

Pause.

Think about it carefully in terms of personal implications.

For the bravest among you, think of what's the value of your Agency/Company.

If you are anything like me, you are super-scared. Some of you are likely super-excited as well.

Don't be scared. Take action.

It is not as crazy as you think to envision that you could be completely automated out. In small pieces this has already happened.

Media example: Campaigns to create, target and deliver results for driving app downloads is now almost entirely automated.

Analytics example: There are already buttons in your tools that automate finding of anomalies in your data that your leaders most need to pay attention to. Eliminating the need for the known knowns and automatically providing the known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

An example that combines the both for even more effective automation: With smart creative, smart bidding, and smart targeting there is no need for any human to touch AdWords or soon a whole lot of your Display campaigns. The results of Data Driven Attribution modeling, which use data from *all* digital campaigns, can now be directly plugged into AdWords which means without any reporting/analysis the platform will automatically optimize for the highest profit for your business – with no human involvement. This is not the future, it is Nov 2017.

Back to the whiteboard.

On top of the box with the stuff you do, write the word Automated.

Ponder now what's your value.

You'll see there are two areas where you can add value. The area before the box, the area after the box.

If you are a Marketer…

You can shift to taking more ownership of the inputs that go into your current job (which remember is now automated). Shift to a responsibility that requires a deeper understanding of your Prospects and Customers at a human level. Now, because of that beautiful knowledge, take ownership of the entire process of identifying the optimal creative assets required for any great Marketing campaign. Then, step up and move to the other side of the box… Own the use and deployment of large scale machine learning services to understand every human, which results in creating the simplest most meaningful experience across all digital touch-points. And then… I'm taking you so far away from your current box… expand the outcomes you own from just the transactional to building deeper years-long beyond-pimpy relationships with your customers.

And suddenly…

You hate the freaking box you are in as a Marketer today. You want to expand your responsibility to own these deeply meaningful things that Machine Learning and our Deep Neural Networks won't touch for a while. You want to feel the true joy that comes from doing meaningful things like figuring out how to build relationships or unleash the full and beautiful power of amazing creative (in ads, in apps, on sites, in products), and so many more exciting things that you were born to do.

Now, you are not scared about automated. You can't wait for your current job to be automated away.

:)

I have the above scenario and the wonderful possibilities for Analysts as well. It is also very exciting, as you’ll discover when you do the whiteboarding exercise for yourself.

Now. I totally get that your entire job is not getting automated tomorrow. But, I suspect you'll be surprised though how fast that is coming. For Nurses. For Truck drivers. For Baristas. For… Everyone. Collect a handful of the smartest people you know, draw a box on a whiteboard, have a discussion.

This thought experiment is just one way to think through the implications of what’s ahead of us. In my blog post on the artificial intelligence opportunity, you’ll see another way I framed how to think this through…

The above framing is a bit more in the higher-order-bit spirit.

I recommend the thought experiment. When you’re done: Step one, have a plan. Step two, execute. Step three, joy. Step four, follow the advice in section one (Now) and section two (Next) of this blog post and start investing in the personal growth you’ll need to move to these new more joy-inducing meaningful jobs.

Your career is in your hands, and I deeply believe it is going to be bright. Seize the moment!

As always, it is your turn now.

Considering the Now moment, is there something unique you do to invest in growing your analytical thinking capabilities? How are you preparing for the Next moment, who are you reading, who are you listening to? Considering the next 25 years in our space, how far do you think automation will go? How are you approaching your personal evolution with the Long moment horizon in mind? How about your company’s?

Please share your unique perspective, challenges, and solutions via comments below.

Thanks.

Digital Analytics + Marketing Career Advice: Your Now, Next, Long Plan is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik

from SEO Tips https://www.kaushik.net/avinash/digital-analytics-marketing-career-advice-ai-now-next-long-plan/

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How can I even begin to describe my time in Ethiopia? Every time I think about it, my heart overflows with nostalgia and I long to be there again.

Click here for a playlist of the music I listened to on the plane if you would like to feel as though you were there with me!

Also if you would like to see all of the pictures I took you can view them *here*.

It all started when one of my friends told me she was going to Africa in the next six months, and I immediately responded with, “You know I’m going with you, right?” I have made it a sort of personal commitment of mine to take every and any chance I get to experience new places and people.

So a bit of an introduction here: Her uncle had founded a non-profit organization back in 2007 called Crisis Aid International that provides safe houses for women both in the USA and Ethiopia who are victims of sex trafficking. This is the main goal of the organization, but in Ethiopia they also provide aid through food distributions in rural villages, have established an all girls orphanage, and have set up a girl’s home for those rescued from the red light district with nowhere else to go. There is also a vocational school where these women can learn trades such as weaving, typing, hairdressing, and entrepreneurship in order to support themselves in a productive, healthy and fulfilling way. While in Ethiopia, the founder of the non-profit was also with us, and was able to show us the future sites of a medical clinic, another girls home with a storefront they can invent and operate themselves, and a possible coffee plantation/organic farm.

“Ameseginalew” pronounced ah ma saht genalo, means thank you in Amharic.  This is the main language Ethiopians speak, but of course there are many variations and dialects depending on region. A couple of other phrases I picked up: Salamnew (salamno)- “Hello”   Endatnesh (inditnish)- “How are you?”  Dena negn (ning) – I’m fine

Betam ameseginalew- “Thank you very much” Chikuryelem- “no problem!” Ciao of course means goodbye  Odeshalew – “i love you”

As with any life-changing experience, my outlook and priorities progressed and fluxed during that week in Ethiopia. I kept a journal while there and I will share the entirety of my entries here along with some recent additions:

Friday, Nov 13th 2015

Being on a plane to Ethiopia right now is surreal. I keep getting these waves of excitement thinking, “wow, is this really happening?”

Going through security I thought I had removed everything that was not permissible, but I had yet again left my mini swiss army knife, one of my grandfather’s, in my bag. Of course they had to confiscate it, but for some reason it made me so upset. The way the man had no empathy or understanding of my position. Yes it was my fault that I left it in there and part of my frustration was with myself because I did not remember to take it out. Nevertheless, that little knife was a reminder to me of

  him, that’s why I kept it with me all the time. If he could be embodied in one single object it would be that. He carried them with him everywhere, using the toothpick religiously, or using the little scissors to cut open our toys we had just gotten from the Bass Pro shop or WalMart or wherever else he took us that day. I just felt like I was wronged somehow. How could that man take away something so precious to me and not care at all what happens to it or me? Not care that its just going to get smashed up and thrown away. It conjured up feelings I haven’t felt since he died. It was almost like it was happening all over again, hearing that shocking news. And there I am standing in the airport crying over a tiny pocket knife. How could I be so stupid? Why didn’t I just leave it at home?

∗        ∗        ∗

    Saturday Nov 14th                                                                             LONG. DAY.

Today was a lot to take in. When we first arrived I was excited to be in a new country and experience the people & places in this part of the world. I simply sat in the van silently observing, listening. The first thing I noticed was how quiet everything was. Almost eerily quiet. I think it’s incredible how accustomed we get to noise, it is constantly surrounding us and we are bombarded day in day out with it. I cannot tell you how calming it was to be in the absence of that raucousness. Something I value about Ethiopia is its pace of life.  No one is in too much of a hurry to forget what is right in front of them. Time is almost non-existent and life is simplified. Driving through Addis, the city was bigger than I expected it to be, but as far as economic development goes I had an idea of what it would be like. There is so much to describe, however, I am completely and utterly exhausted. I want to be able to accurately recall and document my experience…

This day seemed like it was two whole days packed into one. We started out in D.C., got on the plane there, after what seemed like an overnight eternity, stepped off into Addis and started the day all over again. When we were driving through the city I kept waiting to drive through a nicer part, like we were just in the especially poverty stricken areas. But then I realized that it doesn’t get nicer. Even in the marketplaces, shopping malls, and “5 star hotels”, there are beggars and children desperately trying to sell anything they can, following you and coming up to the bus. Their desperation operates every fiber of their being. The whole time we have been here, even back in D.C., we have been the ones receiving the assistance. The men who handle our luggage, the men who drive us around, the children and younger men who make sure we have our amenities and that our utilities are working. You know, its like, I came here to serve these people, not the other way around. And it just makes me feel guilty almost. I wish I wasn’t American. I wish my skin was not white. I wish that I could speak the language and truly connect with these people instead of communicating through smiles and waves. And I wish that I could fix it. All of it. The poverty, the sickness, slavery, oppression, and sadness. It’s just shitty.

I honestly wanted to go home. I felt like I had made a terrible decision. Who am I to pay thousands of dollars to see the every day lives these people live?! We drove to the red light district and walked through a couple of streets. It didn’t feel real. It was like some sort of sick tour. These girls are trapped. They have no way out. And here I am walking down the street with a bunch of other white people, seeing this sight. It’s awful. Some of them let us shake their hands, or give them hugs. I shook one girls hand, but mostly walked the rest of the way. I didn’t know what was happening. I couldn’t process what was going on. How could I be there, really there? It seemed like a bad dream or a scene out of a movie. I had never felt more surrounded by hopelessness. It just made me realize that these people live in this shit, day in and day out. Every. Day. And when I go back home, while I sleep in a bed, use running water, drive a car, live in a durable mess of objects I call home, go to a building to gain knowledge, they will continue to live here in these conditions. It doesn’t end just because I am not witnessing it.

Then you have the question, “Well how do you help?” Progress is a slow moving, stubborn creature. Especially when there are multi-faceted, complicated problems needing to be solved. It must be chipped away, time after time. It all starts with rescuing one girl from slavery, feeding one child, building one home. Just because the task is hefty does not mean nothing should be done. On a large scale, fixing the problems Ethiopia has is next to impossible, but on a small scale, lives and hearts can be fulfilled.

Sunday Nov 15th

There are no “indoors” in Ethiopia. At least not like there is in the States, where each store you walk into is its own little sectioned off, air conditioned box. Here everything is more fluid. The air moves throughout open space, homes, and stores alike.

The streets in the city are lined with corrugated sheet metal shantytowns and large concrete buildings, most of which stand unfinished, the wooden scaffolding abandoned as well. Some of the shanties are inhabited, others are used for selling various goods such as clothing, beverages, fruit, cell phones, and souvenirs. Some are cafés and some are photo centers. There are also a lot of hardware businesses along the street, selling house materials including large, elaborate metal gates, lumber, concrete, ceramic tiles, wooden furniture and mattresses.

The whole city is one big contradiction. There’s people living on the streets in makeshift homes, some of which are merely umbrellas or wooden poles with tarp stretched over them. Yet there is ongoing construction everywhere, landscaping in the middle of the roundabouts, trench digging on the side of the road for drainage, concrete skeletons, and railway construction. The paradox lies in this: the majority of Ethiopia’s population does not have enough money to use these facilities or to be consumers of these products. People don’t have the homes to put the tile in. They don’t have the room for furniture. The current system is clearly not working, at least not in favor of all Ethiopians. When I look at the city as we drive by, I think to myself with dismay and incredulity, “people LIVE here”

*Excuse my wobbly writing, I am currently on a long bus ride to a rural village.

Being in this country is the most surreal experience I have ever had. When I go to sleep, I am no longer in Ethiopia, but when I wake my brain must be retrained. I do not want to liken the situation here to the extremes of war, but there is a similarity in that sleep is a luxury: the simplest things can have profound meaning and value when great suffering is experienced up close and personal. There are moments where you forget all the pain and suffering in your midst, and in that moment you feel at home. I guess you could call it the intersection of truth and grace.

The party at Mercy Chapel was a happier note than last night in the RLD. Seeing all those girls raise their hands saying they want to dream, to have a better life. Hearing the stories of what these girls have been through and how their lives have changed for the better is just incredible. I am  so grateful to have the chance to talk with them, love them, and just be with them. They made me feel so welcome.   They hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. We took pictures together. They did my makeup, and it was a blast. As some of you may know, I have Alopecia and wear a head wrap as an alternative to wigs and other cosmetic “solutions”. The girls here in Ethiopia loved my head covering, and one of them specifically called me over to tell me that I reminded her of her grandmother because she used to wear something similar.  This girl’s name was Betty, her English was very advanced, which allowed us to make a connection that would otherwise be a bit more difficult. She was an extremely kind and upbeat person, fully accepting me for me and not questioning why I look the way I do. It was freeing to be received that way by not only her, but everyone. In Ethiopia, I was not constantly reminded of my disease with people asking what’s wrong with me or if I had cancer, but rather uplifted in my spirit and made comfortable in my own skin.

I knew that the girls who had just graduated were or had been in the RLD, but until after the party I was not aware that all the rest of them, the ones who were invited to celebrate were currently in the RLD. That just completely broke my heart. These girls were normal teenage girls! Some of them younger. I just could not wrap my head around the tragedy that was normal life to them. It was just what they had to do. They were so sweet, its terrible that they are not free. They deserve a better life. They deserve to be treated as human beings, not objects. It makes me feel helpless and angry because, what can I do for them? Meet and spend one day with them, and then completely disappear out of their lives? What good does that do? I wanted to come to Ethiopia to have a realistic perception of this country, but at what cost? To say that I have been to Africa, that I know what it’s like? This is not a vacation. This is not just another country to cross off the list. There are real people who live here with unique character and raw emotion. They are full of personality and for the most part, kind hearted. Not at all like I expected. In fact, this whole trip has completely thrown my expectations out the window.

It seems to me that some people where I grew up still view Africa as it was during colonial times, like it never developed past them. Like it has just been trapped in a vacuum for centuries, existing in nothing but darkness. To be honest, I kind of bought into this for a portion of my life. But then I realized that no culture or people exists inside a vacuum, and I wanted to experience the real Africa, the real Ethiopia, not the vague, fabricated version that existed in my mind. The land only characterized by lions and starving children (of which I was promptly reminded every time I failed to finish eating my dinner as a child) : the place I have been told about my whole life by people who have never even set foot there. I wanted to create an accurate, dignified depiction of these people so that no one may be ignorant, including myself. Because ignorance is the root of all action upon stereotypes which is rooted in prejudice and racism which in turn is an implicit or even blatant lack of desire to understand the people who are different from you. 

∗        ∗        ∗

Monday November 16th

HAH. I don’t know why I thought I would be able to journal every day…….it is actually Friday night as I am writing this. I am just going to start from the beginning and explain what I did each day chronologically.

One thing I left out about the first day we arrived was that we went to a child sponsorship party, and that was really the first time/chance I got to spend time with the Ethiopians. I realized that some things are simply universal, and that no matter how much of a language barrier there is, hand gestures, hugs, kisses, and games-especially soccer-can be excellent forms of communication. There is something innate in all of us that surpasses all forms of lingual communication: the desire to be in communion. We are social beings, and these people long to be loved, to be treated as human, to be told and shown that they matter. Getting to spend time with these kids and speak their language through soccer was a very uplifting experience. I think at that point everything was still very surreal and I couldn’t put down my rose tinted glasses. Then when we went to the RLD I realized the gravity of the situation, and the lives, true lives of Ethiopians became real to me. I saw the suffering, the desperation, the corruption. It all finally materialized in my mind, just how incredibly grim the situation is. And then there we were, jumping at the very first chance of wi-fi & coffee….

I think, in the midst of all this poverty, it can be easy to feel guilty for the things I do have, and the privileges I enjoy because I was born in America and my skin is white. But feeling guilty about it gets you nowhere. I think that is one important thing I have learned, is that it’s about the experience, that is what will lead to action. Use your anger and frustration in a productive way. “It’s ok to have fun”, is what Pat says, the founder of Crisis Aid. But at the same time, I think about these people, and I say to myself “they didn’t choose to live this way”. They were born into it. Just as I was born into my life without having any say in the matter. So why wasn’t I born into their life, or they into mine? Does anything really separate us? There is no reason we could not have just as easily been born into different lives. There is a common denominator here; we all consist of the same cosmic ingredients. What really breaks my heart is that it’s not their fault. They do all they can to provide for themselves and their family, which includes selling their bodies. Men will promise young women a job and a nice place to live, yet little do they know that these men are lying. These women do not choose to sell themselves; they are forced into it.

Whew ok kinda got off track there. I think I pretty much covered what we did Sunday. Monday we basically drove all day, so it was a good day to process. I did not journal much because the bus was bumping around a lot and my handwriting was becoming illegible. Anyway, the drive was beautiful, and that’s an understatement. We drove through lowland plains, mountainous hill country, arid desert stretches, and lush green forests. Ethiopia is the most geographically diverse place I have ever laid eyes on. It is simply breathtaking. (Also, side note: the crescent moon is “upside down” in the night sky of Ethiopia, which I appreciate as a challenge to conventional ways of thinking regarding the way we orient the world). As we were getting further from the city, I realized something about Ethiopians. The people in the villages will drop everything they are doing just to wave at you. Kids will come running, shouting “you! you! you!”and whistling at the bus. One thing I have noticed about Ethiopians is that they all have this hidden joy about them. Any time I would smile and wave at someone, they almost always smiled and waved back. They could have the most serious, sullen countenance, and then the next minute there is this brilliant smile on their kind face. It really made me think about my perceptions of strangers, especially back home. That if these people, whose living conditions are ten times worse than mine, can have that much joy towards a stranger, then I should be able to as well. Ethiopians will quite literally drop whatever they are doing to wave. I waved to one little boy, and as soon as he realized I was waving at him, it was like he put every ounce of his being into waving back, both arms outstretched, fingers spread wide, lunging forward. It was extremely humbling.

Another thing I noticed about Ethiopians, especially in the city, is their lack of censorship. Men will walk over to a tree or bush or wall and start urinating. You’re lucky if they even choose that route. There are also meat markets with slaughtered animals hanging right behind the counters. When we were driving to one of the villages, we actually saw a group of people dressing a cow they had just slaughtered. Everything is just out in the open. There are no taboos, no shame. Mothers breast feed their children without a cover. One little boy was peeing as he was waving to us. Some little boys only wear a shirt, or their pants have so many holes that everything hangs out anyway. People will bathe in rivers completely nude. But they don’t care. It is not something that is considered to be private or shameful I guess. This rugged, raw attitude is also seen with the way people drive. There are very few traffic lights, if any. Most of them are in downtown Addis. For the most part, driving is pure chaos. They use their horns to communicate. There are roundabouts everywhere. Little tiny three wheeled blue and white taxis maneuver in and out of traffic. Yet even in disorder there is order. It seems ridiculous, but they make it work.

WARNING: There is sensitive content in the following paragraphs that may be upsetting to some.

Monday night after a long bus ride we finally got to the place we were staying for the night. It was a college campus that was small, but beautiful. Just being able to sit outside the next morning and let the sun warm my skin was food for the soul. Tuesday then was probably the most difficult day of the trip. We drove to a stabilization clinic which housed the worst cases of starvation and other potentially life threatening health problems in assisting them to recovery. The bags of flour that were to be taken to the food distribution center were stored here. So we proceeded to take these bags and load them onto a truck. Once we got to the food distribution center, it really started to hit me. These people’s lives are mainly characterized by hunger, illness, and filth. Their living conditions are horrid, yet every single one of them can still smile. I find that incredibly humbling. There were hundreds of women and children waiting for us when we got there. The first couple things I noticed about them physically was that they were all barefoot, their clothes were tattered and dirty (probably the only clothes they owned), and a lot of them barely had toenails anymore. I specifically remember seeing one girl’s shirt that said “Don’t cry just say fuck you and smile”. This girl was probably six or seven years old, and there is no way she had any idea what it said. Most of the clothes I saw seemed like they came out of a Goodwill donation box. One man I saw had a D.A.R.E. t-shirt on, and another young man had a bright pink Victoria’s Secret jacket on. Again, the stark irony of affluent Western society superimposed onto the rest of the (starving) world.

As I am walking into the food distribution center, I greet as many mothers and children as I can; saying “salam�� to each one, hugging them and shaking their hands. Pretty soon I am surrounded by a sea of faces. It was quite a sight to see that many people gathered together in this beautiful green courtyard. We had to make our way to the room they were keeping the children and mothers whose malnutrition needed to be measured and documented, photographed, etc. We went around the room and hugged each mother, greeting them with “salam”.

It’s funny how some kids just stick to you, they pick you out and never leave your side. One little boy kept grabbing my arm and kissing my hand. I decided to reciprocate after the first couple of times, and I did so for all the other children who kissed my hand. When it was time to unload the flour, something beautifully communal happened. All of the children lined up on each side of the gate, and started to clap, singing songs of rejoice as we were bringing the bags out of the truck. Ethiopians are the most gracious, appreciative, selfless people I have experienced.

After we unloaded all the flour from the truck, it was time to document the mothers and their malnourished children. This was the most difficult part of the whole trip. I didn’t know what to do, I felt so helpless. Everyone else had a job to do. Aiyana was measuring the children’s arms, Cheryl was writing their information down while Dawit translated for her. Others were blocking entrances making sure no one came in who wasn’t supposed to. And there I was, just sitting there. I felt so useless amidst all this suffering. One mother was sitting on the ground with her five year old son who was extremely malnourished. She said he has been unresponsive, and she has to chew up food for him and put it in his mouth. Seeing her sob and sob and sob for her son broke something in me. When the presence of white people is known, the worst cases come out of the woodworks. There was a blind girl who made her way into the area we were in, desperately looking for someone to heal her. Another woman came in with her baby who had a severe infection on his foot and some other places as well. They are desperate for help, to be healed, to be full. They look at us in desperation, their eyes shouting. And to see these children, with distended bellies and skeletal limbs, some of them so bad that their feet and face have started to swell, starving so severely that their organs have begun to consume themselves in a last attempt to survive. It makes me think “How can the government allow this?!” To think that this village center was just one out of hundreds of thousands just like it makes my angry. And sad. And determined to do something about it.

SAFE TO CONTINUE READING BELOW.

That night we stayed in a much nicer hotel than the ones we had been staying in. We were on the fourth floor, so we had a great view of the town and the hills in the distance. At dinner, we got to eat “American” food for the first time. I got a Mexican burger with avocado & fries that I only ate half of because it was so massive. We had the privilege of eating dinner with Pat at our table, and I asked him what brought him to Ethiopia. He said, “I was reading a newspaper with a headline that said “14 million starving in Ethiopia” and I knew I had to do something  about it. Next thing I knew I was over here with just a phone number.”

Wednesday rolls around, and we didn’t do much except go to a house where some higher risk families were being taken care of. I started to feel sort of useless because we didn’t really have a specific reason for being there as we did for all the other locations. I started wondering what good we could do for the people by just hanging out and standing around. But then something Pat said really struck me that day. He said, “I know you may think you’re just sitting around with them here, but they will remember this for a lifetime: that someone took the time to sit with them and spend time with them. So don’t think that you’re not doing anything worthwhile here, because you are.” That moved me out of my stagnation and stand-offishness into action and allowed me to make a deep connection with them. There were two people there that day that I will never forget. This one little boy, no older than two, was severely malnourished to the point where even his face was swollen, seemed like nothing in the world fazed him. I held him tight for a long while, and I think that was the closest thing to motherhood I could feel without having a child of my own. This boy was so quiet and calm, it made me sad to think that he might not survive much longer. I held him in such a way that all my hopes for him were channeled through my arms. In the same way, I compiled every ounce of empathy I had into the hand I placed on the skeletal shoulder of one young woman. I brought as much of my love I possibly could into my eyes to look at her with, so maybe she could carry it with her.

  The region we were in for the majority of the week is about eight hours south of Addis called Sidama. It is close to Yirga Chefe which may sound familiar to any of you who are coffee connoisseurs, and is where most of the world’s Ethiopian coffee comes from. In fact, it happened to be coffee harvesting season when we were there and I had the pleasure of walking through many gardens filled with coffee trees. Every time I drink Ethiopian coffee, I am grateful to have been to the source of those beans and to have met people who ensure the quality and safety of each one before its journey across the Atlantic. Because coffee trees grow like weeds in this region, it is not abnormal for people to grow their own coffee and use the harvest from one or two trees in the yard. I had the great pleasure of experiencing the most genuine cup of Ethiopian coffee through a traditional ceremony. Some friends of Pat’s who owned the house we were at had already harvested their beans and laid them out to dry in the sun. We all gathered around as the woman of the house made popcorn for a communal snack before roasting the beans in the same cast iron skillet over hot coals. When they were browned to her liking, she took them out and ground them up in a mortar and pestle. She then put the grounds directly into the jebena with water to boil. After the coffee was brewed, she got out about a dozen tiny ceramic cups and put a teaspoon’s worth of salt into each one before she poured the coffee in. She then passed the tray of cups around for everyone to take part, and needless to say it was simply delicious. I think what is so compelling to me about Ethiopians is their generosity and hospitality. It does not come from a place of subservience, but rather of genuine selflessness and desire to be in communion with everyone. I have yet to experience such a welcoming feeling from complete strangers in any other group of people I have encountered.

Coffee trees

Harvested coffee cherries

Whether it was genuinely smiling and waving out the window, blowing a kiss, giving a thumbs up because I knew it would make their day, playing soccer with the kids, letting the girls do my makeup, speaking to them in their language, or even simply holding them close, I know it made all the difference. That is something that is difficult for me to remember even to this day. I am such a pessimist that it blinds me from what is plain to see. Meaningful, genuine human interaction does not operate on a solely linguistic plane. People just want to be loved, to feel like they belong. I think if everyone held this truth and intentionally acted on it, the world would be a much better place.

So Wednesday night we stayed in one of the most remote places I have ever set foot. It was this resort/hotel of sorts called the Aregash in a town called Yirgalem. It featured bungalows as the living quarters and the food was all organically grown in their gardens on site. The water came from a well, so it was good to drink and use. They had the best avocados I had ever eaten. In fact, the whole meal was soul stunningly good. We even had a glass of wine afterwards. One of the main attractions of this place is the hyenas that dwell in the surrounding forest. Every night they come up to the fence to consume whatever scraps the staff has for them. Late at night their cacklings and “laughter” can be heard from inside the bungalow; what an eerie experience that was! In the early morning, one of the groundskeepers was our guide on a hike in search of them. On which I had the luck—or lack thereof depending on your perspective—of peering at what looked like either an abnormally large dog or small bear from a (somewhat) safe distance. There were also some lively monkeys chatting away in the trees. This spot on the map was one I will reminisce about for the rest of my life.

  Thursday we made the drive back to Addis. But about halfway we stopped at Lake Ziway to eat lunch and take a break. Simply beautiful, this lake was. The birds there were iridescent in color and feisty in personality. There were also some ancient tortoises, cactus trees riddled with carved initials and notes, enormous trees perfect for climbing, a ping pong table, a life size chess board, swings, and a diving dock near the shore. The restaurant we ate in had an open building plan where the birds could fly freely in and out for visitors to observe. Oddly enough, this lake was in the middle of a dry, desert land. We saw dirt devils and camels on the way back to Addis. At that point, I wanted to stay in Ethiopia forever.

By Friday and Saturday however, I was ready to return home. My heart had witnessed and expressed a whole slew of emotions within that week and I doubt it could handle much more.  Those were the days we visited the girl’s home and the orphanage. I enjoyed the time we spent there and being able to connect with the girls and form friendships was part of the whole reason I decided to take this journey.  As a woman, I wanted to fight for the equality of my Ethiopian sisters and show them that they have value and should be able to live a life they want to live. I didn’t want to continue to be part of the problem, sitting back and acknowledging what a shame it is yet never really doing anything about it. I had to shed my ignorance and interact with the living, breathing people of Ethiopia, not just the far-off suffering, poverty stricken people I heard or read about.

THE DEBRIEFING

When I came home from Ethiopia, I experienced a horde of mixed emotions. I was happy to be home again, but I became very depressed. At that point in my life, even before leaving for Africa, I was not exactly living purposefully nor did I have any sort of stable mindset about my life. I was looking for something to drown out my discontent so as any good college student would do, I turned to alcohol to solve my problems. Of course, that only suppressed them and made everything worse, but who thinks about that when the world is crashing down on you? I didn’t know what to do. It seemed like my entire life was an existential crisis (and still does quite honestly). But what woke me up from all of that was that I had to do better, not for me, but for all of the people I had met and shared moments with in Ethiopia and the rest of my brothers and sisters around the world that share in their suffering. To be better. To take my life seriously and appreciate the life I have been born into. Who am I to take my education for granted and complain about the many privileges I enjoy? I owe it to the underprivileged and exploited world to do everything in my power to help. If I can do something to make even the slightest bit of impact, make even the slightest improvement in one person’s life, I must because the world needs more genuine care and concern for other human beings.

  Thank you for enduring my book of a blog post, and congratulations if you’ve gotten this far because this is it!

THE END

            East Africa: November 2015 How can I even begin to describe my time in Ethiopia? Every time I think about it, my heart overflows with nostalgia and I long to be there again.