Nobody else could do my job…uh oh.
On the Web, where relations are mostly anonymous, it’s really easy to stumble upon the sentiment “I can do almost anyone else’s job, but nobody else could do mine.” That’s especially true when you look at comment sections below articles about why engineering is underappreciated in the United States, for example. And you can be sure we have that conversation in data science, marketing and web, as well. Usually, in those cases, a person is lamenting the recognition another field gets by pondering how easy it would be to shift into it from their role. Truth is, a lot of us like to think we’re irreplaceable in our roles. It makes us feel secure, important, useful. Our beneficiaries need us, [...]
The First Principles of Marketing
Our world is fraught with hidden misunderstandings. Hidden miscommunications. Missed opportunities in hiding. See an example for yourself: Ask 5 people what a "campaign" is. Expect 7-10 answers in return. "It's an advertising effort on a channel. You know--a Facebook campaign, a paid search campaign, a Google Display campaign." You open Google or Adobe Analytics and see 99 campaigns in Q1 alone that have names like "US_2021_Q1_BusinessA_Facebook" and "CN_2021Q1_BusinessE_Weibo." This is one of the answers you'd probably get from the client side. Ad hoc budgets or an incentive to show "lots of work" gets campaigns divided into tiny, narrow plots of land with really high walls around them. Facebook effort has nothing to do with the Reddit effort. No business [...]
Apples and Oranges
2 Apples + 3 Oranges = ??? There's a phrase we often use during discussions of contrasts: "apples and oranges." The point of the phrase is usually that trying to compare and contrast the things in question is pointless. They're like apples and oranges, you know! "You can't compare Metallica to Shakira. It's like comparing apples and oranges." "You can't compare Thai food to Indian food. It's apples to oranges!" "You can't say that product pages convert better than blog posts. You're comparing apples to oranges!" You've heard statements like those, right? I don't know if apples and oranges are the sacred incomparable objects in all of our languages; I know for instance that some versions of Spanish say "apples [...]