mrpatto https://mrpatto.com/ en Wed, 07 Feb 2024 14:10:15 +1100 Email newsletters 4 eva https://mrpatto.com/2024/02/07/email-newsletters-eva.html Wed, 07 Feb 2024 14:10:15 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2024/02/07/email-newsletters-eva.html <p>When you want to own your audience, build relationships, and connect with people, nothing beats an email newsletter. <a href="https://helpscout.wistia.com/medias/fkvmy5gowt">Here’s my talk from Web Directions Summit, 2023,</a> exploring some great examples of email newsletters and what we can learn from them. </p> It's just a band-aid solution! https://mrpatto.com/2024/01/16/its-just-a.html Tue, 16 Jan 2024 13:16:16 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2024/01/16/its-just-a.html <p>OK, sure.</p> <p>But sometimes a band-aid solution is exactly what is needed. For grazes, scrapes, or things which are not even really a problem at all but where a gesture of assistance feels good.</p> <p>Plenty of customer support questions fall into this category - maybe some part of the app was down for maintenance for a few minutes. It sucked that it happened right when a customer wanted to do something.</p> <p>Nothing really needs to change, the maintenance is essential, but it doesn&rsquo;t feel good to be disrupted. A good rep can make that person feel heard, acknowledge their annoyance, and get them back on with their day feeling a little bit better.</p> <p>It&rsquo;s not always process improvements and new features and &ldquo;going the extra 1.609km&rdquo;. Keep your support team stocked up with band-aids, little bandages, and some of those nice biscuits.*</p> <p><em>* or cookies, if that&rsquo;s your term. Although maybe they&rsquo;d love your weird breakfast scones with gravy. Anything is possible. </em></p> The one time it was true https://mrpatto.com/2023/10/11/the-one-time.html Wed, 11 Oct 2023 10:22:45 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/10/11/the-one-time.html <div style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden;"> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4nn_UncZWpU" style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border:0;" allowfullscreen title="YouTube Video"></iframe> </div> <p>Doris Lessing was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/shortcuts/2013/oct/11/how-accept-nobel-prize-style-alice-munro-peter-higgs">famously sick of winning</a> by the time she won the Nobel Prize.</p> How to Build Lasting Customer Relationships https://mrpatto.com/2023/07/11/how-to-build.html Tue, 11 Jul 2023 11:33:54 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/07/11/how-to-build.html <p>An effective customer-facing team is one that is:</p> <ul> <li>empowered: they have the authority and the access to take the required steps, based on their good judgment.</li> <li>well trained: they have the opportunity to continually update their skills, learn from feedback, and share ideas with their colleagues</li> <li>respected: they know that the rest of the company values their input and insights</li> <li>engaged: they can operate the team with enough slack and a variety of tasks so that no one gets burned out.</li> </ul> <p><a href="https://medium.com/authority-magazine/mathew-patterson-of-help-scout-on-how-to-build-lasting-customer-relationships-4bc546fc3f23">In this interview with Authority Magazine</a> I also talk about AI, culture, and the five key components of building lasting customer relationships.</p> It's me https://mrpatto.com/2023/03/06/my-relationship-with.html Mon, 06 Mar 2023 10:15:47 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/03/06/my-relationship-with.html <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/96885/2023/adb643f7b1.gif" alt="Me and productivity" title="me-and-productivity.gif" border="0" width="300" height="168" style="margin-bottom:10px;" /> <p>The older I get, the more I am accepting of the way my brain seems to prefer to work. I try to look at the shiny tools and appreciate them as nice design artifacts, not magic fixes.</p> <p>The trick is in creating the interface between myself and other people I work with (who quite reasonably need certain structures and documents). Getting help where I need it, adopting other working styles in some projects, listening carefully.</p> <p>But I have given up on trying to be a different person.</p> But the marshmallows are so tasty https://mrpatto.com/2023/02/02/but-the-marshmallows.html Thu, 02 Feb 2023 14:18:31 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/02/02/but-the-marshmallows.html <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/96885/2023/9cebfb4104.png" alt="Ceos" title="ceos.png" border="0" width="600" height="371" /> <p>I would not want the job of CEO (rest easy <a href="https://twitter.com/nickfrancis">Nick Francis</a>). So much pressure to hit the numbers and &ldquo;move the needle&rdquo; in the short term. Even when you know in your heart and your mind that what might work in the short term may be ruining the product in the long term.</p> <p>How hard it must be to prioritise the sort of long, tedious projects that will ultimately enable much better customer experiences, but that will make no impact for months, and may even cost you opportunities in the short term.</p> <p>No wonder so many companies in need grab for those sweet, sweet marshmallows of flashy features instead. For customer service leaders desperate for bug fixes and long-needed-but-dull improvements, it can be endlessly frustrating. But that is why it helps to understand the tensions of the business you are in.</p> <p>If you can only truly grok your own piece of the business, you can&rsquo;t understand why some decisions are made, and you won&rsquo;t be effective in arguing for your own projects.</p> <p>The best CX leaders can connect with other parts of the business, and find ways to make those long term investments more palatable and tempting to everyone.</p> <p>It takes a real combination of skills and a bunch of hard work. Also, I assume, lots of spreadsheets.</p> Better interviews = better hires https://mrpatto.com/2023/02/01/better-interviews-better.html Wed, 01 Feb 2023 08:58:22 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/02/01/better-interviews-better.html <p>I need to say sorry.</p> <p>Sorry to the people I hired when they didn&rsquo;t have the right skills to thrive in the role.</p> <p>And the people who had the skills but with a mindset that didn&rsquo;t mesh with the rest of the team.</p> <p>Interviewing is hard work on both sides, and getting it wrong is painful for the new hire, and for the team they join.</p> <p>And when you&rsquo;re hiring for customer facing roles, your customer experience can suffer too.</p> <p>That&rsquo;s why I am really excited about this Customer Service Interview Builder. I&rsquo;ve been working on it for a while, with the incredible help of the design, front-end, and marketing folks at Help Scout. With this free tool you can browse 60+ thoughtful interview questions, all categorised for you.</p> <p>Pick them, sort them, edit them, and add your own custom questions to create a consistent, effective interview guide quickly and easily.</p> <p><a href="https://www.helpscout.com/interview-builder/">You can try it right now</a> and I would love to hear what you think.</p> <p><a href="https://www.helpscout.com/interview-builder/"><img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/96885/2023/d1aaf3dfdc.png" alt="Interview builder" title="interview-builder.png" border="0" width="598" height="336" /></a></p> Pay no attention to those behind the curtain https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/19/pay-no-attention.html Thu, 19 Jan 2023 15:33:03 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/19/pay-no-attention.html <!--excerpt--> <p class="subtitle">Artifical intelligence is not actually intelligent, and OpenAI is not particularly open about how they operate.</p> <p>The 1986 movie, Short Circuit, teaches us at least three things about the era:</p> <ol> <li>People in power did not yet understand that <a href="https://www.avclub.com/fisher-stevens-a-very-white-guy-now-regrets-playing-a-1846868532">having a white actor play an Indian</a> was a very bad idea.</li> <li>They did know that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnTKllDbu5o">machines would be able to &ldquo;learn&rdquo; much more quickly than a person could teach</a>.</li> <li>Steve Guttenberg really was everywhere.</li> </ol> <p>The capacity of modern AI language models to absorb input is vastly beyond what Johnny 5 could ever have dreamed of. However, <a href="https://www.helpscout.com/blog/google-lamda-customer-service/">AI is not sentient</a>. It does not, can not, <em>know</em> anything. So it absorbs all of the racist, sexist, immoral, horrible things right alongside the best of our species. And has no way to know which is which.</p> <p>Companies have learned (after a <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist">few</a> <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2326129-artificially-intelligent-robot-perpetuates-racist-and-sexist-prejudice/">failed</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/16/racist-robots-ai/">attempts</a>) that they need to at least try not to replicate the worst of humanity at machine scale.</p> <p>The answer to that dilemma, so far, has been <a href="https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/">paying underpaid, under-protected people to be human filth filters</a>, reading and watching horrendous material so that the rest of us can experience the nice Disneyfied &ldquo;magic&rdquo; of generative AI. Just don&rsquo;t think too hard about how it works. Quick, <a href="https://www.theredhandfiles.com/chat-gpt-what-do-you-think/">send Nick Cave another &ldquo;Nick Cave&rdquo; song</a>.</p> <p>This is not a new story, just the latest reboot. Some of Facebook&rsquo;s outsourced content moderation teams <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/12/21255870/facebook-content-moderator-settlement-scola-ptsd-mental-health">have at least received a settlement for their own trauma</a>. While some people are trying to teach the machines how to act like a decent person, Amazon (among others) is <a href="https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/amazon-delivery-partners-rage-against-the-machines-we-were-treated-like-robots-1.1663203">trying to turn people into robots</a>.</p> <p>In every case, the secret of their success is in hiding the reality of how things are done. As long as we don&rsquo;t have to see it happen, we don&rsquo;t have to think about what it means. Pay no attention to those behind the curtain, because it might stop you clicking that &lsquo;buy&rsquo; button.</p> I made a video about a really old library https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/15/i-made-a.html Sun, 15 Jan 2023 19:07:52 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/15/i-made-a.html <p>The first known library in the world was Ashurbanipal&rsquo;s. It was in Nineveh (near modern day Mosul, in Iraq) in the 7th century BC. Ashurbanipal was a King of Assyria, and he collected thousands of clay tablets, as well as writing on wood, papyrus, and wax.</p> <p>What made a king spend time tracking down obscure texts like &ldquo;The instructions for ‘Hand-Lifting'&rdquo; when he could have been off fighting wars (or lions)? When I first heard about Ashurbanipal I wanted to know more.</p> <p><em>Insert montage of internet searches, JSTOR researching, half-written-articles, and clay models of a sheep&rsquo;s liver. </em></p> <p>Eventually <a href="https://mrpatto.com/thefirst/librarian/">I made a short video, The First Librarian</a>, to share what I learned. I hope you find it worth your time.</p> <div style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden;"> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9_jym3vTJuI" style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border:0;" allowfullscreen title="YouTube Video"></iframe> </div> <p>I intend to make more videos about interesting firsts. The next one will focus on the first chemical element that we know was discovered by a specific person. Catchy title: check.</p> https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/going-full-eleanor.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 14:06:26 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/going-full-eleanor.html <p>Some days, you wake up feeling great and genuinely wanting to help people. Other days, in customer service you have to go full Eleanor Rigby, wearing a face you keep in a jar by the door.</p> <p>If you&rsquo;re lucky, you work somewhere that lets you show your real face to your colleagues. It&rsquo;s where we all belong.</p> Support! The Musical https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/support-the-musical.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 13:47:02 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/support-the-musical.html <p>A typical customer service interaction, as written by song titles.</p> <iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/0Zg7Sl019lonGuPTHUBFvl?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe> Because it works...sort of https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/because-it-workssort.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 13:42:34 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/because-it-workssort.html <p>Is this how your CEO treats customer service? If so, it&rsquo;s going to be hard to really deliver a great customer experience</p> <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/96885/2023/beb797d757.jpg" alt="Flaws" title="flaws.jpg" border="0" width="510" height="572" /> Know Your Jargon https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/know-your-jargon.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 13:37:57 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/know-your-jargon.html <p><strong>Content Marketing:</strong> Creating and sharing helpful information through various forms of media.</p> <p><strong>Discontent Marketing:</strong> Convincing people they have a problem that you’ve created and, in an incredible coincidence, sell a solution for.</p> Interviewed on The Only One Business Show https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/interviewed-on-the.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 13:36:50 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/interviewed-on-the.html <p>I chatted with a fellow Australian, James Nathan, for his podcast recently. Talking points: online service, what people ask for vs what they really need, and why I gave up being a web designer.</p> <p><a href="https://www.jamesnathan.com/s4e8-mat-patterson/">You can listen to the episode or read the transcript on his website</a>.</p> Artificial Mediocrity https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/artificial-mediocrity.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 13:32:29 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/artificial-mediocrity.html <p>AI chat bots are good enough if you&rsquo;re already accepting pretty crappy support as your standard. If you want to deliver excellent service consistently, and you&rsquo;re not a gigantic company, AI-only chat experiences are not the answer.</p> <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/96885/2023/ac558328ab.jpg" alt="Botvenn" title="botvenn.jpg" border="0" width="600" height="394" /> Patently Absurd! https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/patently-absurd.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 13:30:25 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/patently-absurd.html <p>I was doing some chatbot reseearch when I came across a patent for chatbots in prison. <div style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden;"> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2vxug3uCgpU" style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border:0;" allowfullscreen title="YouTube Video"></iframe> </div> </p> All the hats in the world https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/all-the-hats.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 13:24:39 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/all-the-hats.html <p>I have received the secret leaked code that supports every early stage SaaS application on earth.</p> <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/96885/2023/012e9330ff.gif" alt="Optimizing" title="optimizing.gif" border="0" width="600" height="491" /> When Australians work with Americans https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/when-australians-work.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 09:42:43 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/when-australians-work.html <p>I’ve spent a lot of my working life working daily with some wonderful, funny, supportive colleagues all over North America. And some of my working life saying things like these&hellip;</p> <div style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden;"> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DeoeQLrHNYA" style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border:0;" allowfullscreen title="YouTube Video"></iframe> </div> 10 Slack Power Moves https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/slack-power-moves.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 09:41:11 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/slack-power-moves.html <!--excerpt--> <p class="subtitle">If we must Slack, then we should Slack harder than anyone has ever Slacked before.</p> <p>Slack is built on the delusion that email-the-medium was the problem, and not the terrible communication skills of the people using it.</p> <p>If we must Slack, then we should Slack harder than anyone has ever Slacked before. This is how to win Slack.</p> <h3 id="1-the-emoji-analyst">1. The Emoji Analyst</h3> <p>Insist that people explain their emoji reactions in detail so you can “understand exactly what that specific smile with the tongue means”. Tell them that in your culture, it means something different.</p> <h3 id="2-the-context-switcher">2. The Context Switcher</h3> <p>Wait for your colleague to post a reply to your message, then edit your original message to make their reply seem <em>completely</em> inappropriate. @mention your HR rep in the thread with “just FYI, no action needed”.</p> <h3 id="3-the-balance-destroyer">3. The Balance Destroyer</h3> <p>Find a post with perfectly balanced numbers of emoji reactions, and add your vote to everything but one of them to ruin the symmetry.</p> <h3 id="4-the-old-switcheroo">4. The Old Switcheroo</h3> <p>When you see your colleague “<em>is typing</em>” for a long time in response to your question, quickly change the subject to something more urgent just before they finally hit enter. Never refer back to the original question.</p> <h3 id="5-the-knock-and-run">5. The Knock and Run</h3> <p>Send a private message to a colleague asking if you can speak urgently about something big, then immediately log out for the day. For bonus points, set up an auto-response on your email, directing any urgent inquiries to the same colleague.</p> <h3 id="6-the-heavyweight-champion">6. The Heavyweight champion</h3> <p>Never use a 10 second video when you can use a 200MB animated gif instead. Preferably a stilted, 16 colour version.</p> <h3 id="7-the-anticipation-aneurysm">7. The Anticipation Aneurysm</h3> <p>Use automation tools to make it seem like you are always typing, but never actually send a message.</p> <h3 id="8-the-almost-irritant">8. The Almost Irritant</h3> <p>Create a truly annoying and pointless Slack bot but make sure it triggers just rarely enough that nobody ever bothers to go and remove it.</p> <h3 id="9-the-thread-end">9. The Thread End</h3> <p>Create thread click bait by starting threads beneath important work messages so people click through. Post ‘<em>I’ve removed this (edited)</em>’ as the entire comment.</p> <h3 id="10-the-heresy">10. The @Heresy</h3> <p>Use @here regularly, but always to admonish people for not setting up their notifications properly.</p> A-Player Nay Sayer https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/aplayer-nay-sayer.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 09:39:51 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/aplayer-nay-sayer.html <!--excerpt--> <p class="subtitle">Running a company “full of A-Players!” is a bad idea, even if you could do it. You can’t.</p> <p>Take a look at your clothes. Unless it’s cosplay day, chances are you’re not a ninja. You’re not a rockstar. You’re not a superhero, even if you’re heavily into lycra. You may not even be that most valuable of human resources: an “A-Player.” Or at least, you’re probably not what <a href="https://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr">Netflix thinks of as an A-Player</a>.</p> <p>To hear some businesses talk about hiring, you’d think the world’s working population could be neatly divided into alphabetic ratings. The Ds and Es quietly drooling in the corner while the Bs and Cs stumble behind the mighty A-Players. They slam down bulletproof coffee while growth-hacking their morning routines to “crush it.”</p> <p>Even if it were true, it’s self-evident that not every business could be full of this sort of A-Player. Yet no company is going to say “we hire C-players!”</p> <p>Peter Drucker identified this problem more than 50 years ago in “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48019.The_Effective_Executive">The Effective Executive</a>”:</p> <blockquote> <p>“What seems to be wanted is universal genius, and universal genius has always been in scarce supply. The experience of the human race indicates strongly that the only person in abundant supply is the universal incompetent. We will therefore have to staff our organizations with people who at best excel in one of these abilities. And then they are more than likely to lack any but the most modest endowment in the others.”</p> </blockquote> <p>Was Drucker saying you should not hire a genius if you find one? Of course not. He’s merely speaking the reality that few people excel in every facet of business. Moreover, human beings are not <a href="https://westworld.fandom.com/wiki/Host#Hosts_-_An_Introduction">Westworld hosts</a>, with sets of clearly labeled attributes set to particular levels. They are infinitely variable beings, heavily influenced by the company, culture and context surrounding them.</p> <p>The obsession with hiring purely the narrowly defined ambitious, competitive and highly driven “A-Player” is costly in time, money, and in talent. The world is full of smart, talented, effective and reliable contributors who don’t fit into that mold (or who don’t wish to live that lifestyle).</p> <p>Not only can you build a successful business with a wider variety of people, you should do so. Netflix likens themselves to a pro sports team, yet pro teams full of individual superstars tend to underperform expectations. Moneyball author <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/problem-all-stars-adam-grant/">Michael Lewis said</a> of the star-filled but championship losing 2010 Miami Heat team:</p> <blockquote> <p>“The stars are overrated and the role players are underrated. The role players, the people we think of not as stars, might be doing sometimes things that are extremely valuable, but that don&rsquo;t get the attention that the stars do.”</p> </blockquote> <p>The research backs Lewis up. Roderick Swaab and colleagues <a href="https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6157&amp;context=lkcsb_research">showed in their 2014 study</a> that teams with too many “stars” struggle to maintain the coordination needed to achieve complex tasks.</p> <p>Should we as customer service leaders therefore lower our standards and give up on the idea of hiring great people? Of course not. Exceptional customer service absolutely requires smart, engaged team members. It just doesn’t require that every one of those team members be the support equivalent of LeBron James; a dominant, driven leader.</p> <p>It does mean that more effort should be spent on creating an environment in which different types of people will be able to perform well.</p> <p>We need to spend more time and effort on training ourselves as leaders and building systems that support and encourage the kind of behaviours that lead to better service.</p> <p>A person who is an A-Player for someone else’s team will not necessarily perform in your team. There is no universal test or measure for “the best people”. Our teams should be filled with a diverse range of people who share core values like accountability, integrity, craftsmanship and honesty, and who beyond that have the right mix of skills to contribute to the team.</p> <p>Customer service is a perfect home for vibrant, talented, hardworking people who want to do an exceptional job, but aren’t willing to work 100-hour weeks. People who value their lives outside of work. Who want to make a difference, but don’t want to be owned by their jobs.</p> <p>The nature of customer service work allows for more flexibility and diversity than many careers. It’s why you see so many artists, parents, travellers and psychology majors in the ranks of high-performing customer service departments.</p> <p>Building a team that’s explicitly not “superstars only” is a more achievable model than the Netflix approach. It opens up a broader pool of applicants and creates roles to which people will commit for longer periods.</p> <p>Of course we should not fool ourselves. Success with such a team is not guaranteed any more than drafting a bunch of superstars guarantees a championship. It requires deliberate effort, attention and maintenance.</p> <p>Your team culture matters; your team’s influence and respect within the larger company matters. The leadership you show and the leadership you develop from within your team matters.</p> <p>You could not build an effective support team out of prototypical A-Players even if you wanted to. Hire your traditional A-Players, certainly. They may well be your future leaders. But don’t stop there. Surround those few with a well trained, well supported team full of dedicated, rounded, highly engaged people who will form the heart of your organisation for years to come.</p> Two jobs in 16 years? https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/two-jobs-in.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 09:36:51 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/two-jobs-in.html <!--excerpt--> <p class="subtitle"> In defence of the long tech tenure.</p> <p>In 2006 Justin Timberlake was returning sexy to its original location, James Blunt was being creepy to someone on the tube, and the Devil spent up big on Prada. Also I joined <a href="https://campaignmonitor.com">Campaign Monitor</a> for the next decade. In 2016 (<em>Adele saying “Hello” a lot and eventually finding Dory</em>) I joined <a href="https://helpscout.com">Help Scout</a> and have worked there remotely ever since.</p> <p>Two jobs. 16 years. In <em>software companies</em>. I’m like a piece of built-in office furniture compared to most people, and when I tell them they tend to have one of three reactions:</p> <img src="https://mrpatto.micro.blog/uploads/2023/f960c487c8.jpg" alt="Techtenure" title="techtenure.jpg" border="0" width="600" height="394" /> <p>I understand the incredulity. Prior to these two jobs I hadn’t stayed anywhere more than 3 years either.</p> <h2 id="factors-that-lead-to-a-longer-tenure">Factors that lead to a longer tenure</h2> <p>So why do I stay? Here’s my list of desirable company traits:</p> <ul> <li><strong>A company that actively demonstrates values close to mine</strong>. For example, thinking that customer service is important, and backing up that belief with the investment of money and time. But also treatment of people in general among other items.</li> <li><strong>Opportunities to learn and to try new things</strong>. I may have had the same title for years, but I haven’t always been doing the same work. I value the variety.</li> <li><strong>Good leadership</strong>. If you have managers and leaders who are trustworthy, engaged and pleasant to work for, life is better. And work takes up a lot of life hours.</li> <li><strong>Values humanity</strong>. A workplace which acknowledges people as people, and does not treat staff like disappointingly inefficient robots. Somewhere that allows for illness, holidays, mental health days, flexible hours, and that judges the work output instead of the process.</li> <li><strong>Trust and autonomy</strong>. A company that trusts their staff to do the work and is accepting of mistakes. One that encourages autonomy.</li> <li><strong>Diversity, Equity and Inclusion</strong>. A company that not only “supports” diversity but that actively works to increase it. An ongoing learning process for me as it is for most companies.</li> </ul> <p>Of course a long tenure is about me too. Specifically:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Self-awareness</strong>. The more experience I have the better I understand what I care about, what I’m good at, and what I don’t want to do. I am pickier now because I know what matters to me.</li> <li><strong>Life stage</strong>. My risk tolerance is lower in this young-children-and-mortgage phase of my life.</li> <li><strong>Fear of change and risk</strong>. My comfort zone tends to be roughly the size of a <a href="https://www.snuggy.com/">snuggy</a>. Unlike AURORA and Idina Menzel, I’m not prone to jumping into the unknown.</li> </ul> <p>No job will hit 100% on every measure, every time. But to even find a company that scores well is not easy and takes a significant amount of time and effort. Of course, it&rsquo;s not like staying where you are comes without costs either.</p> <h2 id="costs-of-a-long-tenure">Costs of a long tenure</h2> <p>Being in the same company for years can mean missing out on bigger salary jumps, and a slower journey “up the ladder”. If that’s what you’re into. It might mean missed opportunities to learn new skills or to work with an incredible person elsewhere.</p> <p>The critical factor, for me, is choice. I am <strong>not trapped</strong> in my job.</p> <p>One reason I write articles and give conference talks is to keep a degree of visibility, so that if I did need to move it would be easier. When you feel stuck every small workplace indignity is twice as painful. When you’re staying by choice, and you know what really matters, then you can let the little things slide.</p> <p>I don’t judge people who want to job hop every 18 months, but it’s not for me. Or at least, not for now. I’m happy being a reliable, well made piece of office furniture. Maybe a credenza. I think I know what they are.</p> How I write an article https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/how-i-write.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 09:34:00 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/how-i-write.html <p>I write articles at Help Scout and in this video I share my whole process from idea to published piece. I also reveal my most common mistakes so you can laugh at them. You can</p> <script src="https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/78t8x6k5wa.jsonp" async></script><script src="https://fast.wistia.com/assets/external/E-v1.js" async></script><div class="wistia_responsive_padding" style="padding:56.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;"><div class="wistia_responsive_wrapper" style="height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;top:0;width:100%;"><div class="wistia_embed wistia_async_78t8x6k5wa seo=false videoFoam=true" style="height:100%;position:relative;width:100%"><div class="wistia_swatch" style="height:100%;left:0;opacity:0;overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0;transition:opacity 200ms;width:100%;"><img src="https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/78t8x6k5wa/swatch" style="filter:blur(5px);height:100%;object-fit:contain;width:100%;" alt="" aria-hidden="true" onload="this.parentNode.style.opacity=1;" /></div></div></div></div> <p><a href="https://www.helpscout.com/blog/help-scout-content-process/">read the full article on the Help Scout blog</a>.</p> Unboxing socks https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/unboxing-socks.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 09:32:08 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/unboxing-socks.html <p>The folk at <a href="https://www.klausapp.com/">Klaus</a> sent me some free swag, which included a tuna-can like container of socks. Who could resist making an unboxing video for socks in a can? Not me, clearly.</p> <div style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden;"> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tetJuOxuRfw" style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border:0;" allowfullscreen title="YouTube Video"></iframe> </div> Starving the Algorithm https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/10/starving-the-algorithm.html Tue, 10 Jan 2023 09:29:33 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/10/starving-the-algorithm.html <!--excerpt--> <p class="subtitle">In which I strive to deprive my algorithmic media masters. </p> <p>In 1995’s <em>The Road Ahead</em>, Bill Gates wrote glowingly about the personalisation technology in his then-under-construction mansion. As quoted in <em><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/smarthome/smart-home-affordable-future-bill-gates-xanadu-alexa-google.html">New York Magazine</a></em>:</p> <blockquote> <p>“First thing, as you come in, you’ll be presented with an electronic pin to clip to your clothes,” wrote Gates. The pin connected visitors to the house and its myriad services, from lighting and temperature to what news program to show on the many TVs spread around the home. “As you walk down a hallway, you might not notice the lights ahead of you gradually coming up to full brightness and the lights behind you fading<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup>.”</p> </blockquote> <p>26 years on, our phones make the whole world a worse version of the Gates house. If he was building it today, Bill’s bathrooms probably wouldn&rsquo;t open until you’d listened to a 60 second read about the latest subscription toothbrush offers<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">2</a></sup>. The article goes on to say:</p> <blockquote> <p>Music was similarly able to follow visitors. “It will seem to be everywhere,” wrote Gates, “although, in fact, other people in the house will be hearing entirely different music or nothing at all.”</p> </blockquote> <p>Bill was on the mark there—we constantly stream our own playlists now. Seven million copies of <em>Cracked Rear View</em> took Hootie and his puffy friends to the top of Billboard’s album charts in 1995. In 2020, Taylor Swift’s <em>Folklore</em> took the top spot with only 1.27 million albums. The mass market is no more, splintered into millions of smaller markets like a Mogwai after a late night swim.</p> <p>When there are essentially infinite entertainment and information options, how do we choose what to consume? The Algorithms will save us.</p> <h2 id="every-man-is-an-island">Every man is an island.</h2> <p>An algorithm (at least as applied to media like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and even Pinterest) is a set of rules that decide which content to show a given person when they access the service. It’s the ultimate in niche marketing, theoretically targeting a message all the way down to an individual person.</p> <p>There’s nothing inherently wrong with the idea of showing people things they are more likely to be interested in, based on what you know about them<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">3</a></sup>. But II don’t want to be advertised to more “effectively<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">4</a></sup>”. I don’t need to buy more things, and it’s easier to ignore irrelevant advertising. The algorithms are theoretically supposed to make the services better for me, but that’s not actually the case.</p> <p>In fact, the algorithms are designed to increase my engagement. <strong>Engagement is not the same as enjoyment</strong>. I do not want to know how much time I have spent over the last 4 years hate-reading political twitter posts that add nothing to my understanding, drain my empathy and increase my stress levels.</p> <p>But because I “engaged” with the worst posts, I see more of them. Twitter at least gives the option of a straight chronological feed, but for months it would switch me back to its algorithm-driven “Top Tweets” feed every few days. Facebook and Youtube are even worse, both of them proven tools for radicalising opinions and creating information bubbles which are difficult to break into.</p> <p><strong>I’m tired of it.</strong> I want my dumb feeds back, the ones that just show me what I subscribed to, in chronological order. It’s impossible to get all the way there, but there are steps I have taken that help.</p> <hr> <h2 id="stop-feeding-the-algorithm">Stop feeding the algorithm</h2> <p><strong>Youtube</strong>:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/95725?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&amp;hl=en">Clear and turn off watch and search history</a> (because that’s used to generate recommendations)</li> <li>Consider using <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unhook-remove-youtube-rec/khncfooichmfjbepaaaebmommgaepoid">an extension to hide comments and recommendations</a></li> <li>Opt out of <a href="https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en-GB#zippy=%2Cdisable-other-companies-personalised-ads">personalised Google ads</a></li> </ul> <p><strong>Twitter</strong></p> <ul> <li>Turn off “<a href="https://twitter.com/settings/ads_preferences">personalized ads</a>”</li> <li>Remove all the “<a href="https://twitter.com/settings/your_twitter_data/twitter_interests">interests</a>” Twitter thinks I have<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">5</a></sup>. <a href="https://www.eviltester.com/blog/eviltester/2019/11/25-automating-twitter-interests/">This script</a> helps make it faster.</li> <li>Choose “Latest Tweets” as my default view</li> <li>Considering <a href="https://twitter.com/settings/mute_and_block">muting</a> some key trigger topics</li> </ul> <p><strong>Facebook</strong></p> <ul> <li>I removed everything I could, while retaining an account for work purposes (and to contact some people). <a href="%5Bhttps://7labs.io/tips-tricks/delete-facebook-posts-in-bulk.html#Delete%5C_Facebook%5C_post%5C_history%5C_in%5C_bulk%5C_Chrome%5C_Extension%5D">This extension</a> was helpful in getting that done.</li> <li>Use <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-container/">a Facebook container in Firefox</a> to restrict Facebook’s ability to track me</li> <li>Used <a href="https://west.io/news-feed-eradicator/">an extension to hide the news feed</a> completely</li> </ul> <p><strong>Email</strong></p> <ul> <li>I’m looking at <a href="https://www.fastmail.com/">Gmail</a> <a href="https://hey.com/">alternatives</a>, but haven’t made a move yet.</li> </ul> <hr> <p>If these algorithms were really good, they could show me what would be genuinely educational, challenging my beliefs with accurate information. But they can’t distinguish “engaged” from “informed”. Or more likely they just don’t care to.</p> <p>I used to think it was foolish to rely on technical solutions to help me deal with bad online habits, but now I think it makes sense to use the technology to address a problem created by lots of people with lots of technology.</p> <p>With a few tweaks I can still use these services and get value from them, and retain a little more control over my own engagement. It’s worth the effort.</p> <section class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes"> <hr> <ol> <li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote"> <p>First off, Bill, when I find myself walking towards a bright light while the world fades out behind me, I’m going to assume I’ve been murdered. Probably by the Blue House of Death.&#160;<a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:2" role="doc-endnote"> <p>Use offer code “<em>10peecent</em>” at checkout for 10% off your first order.&#160;<a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:3" role="doc-endnote"> <p>Lawn bowling clubs love their advertisements for retirement villages and funeral planning&#160;<a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:4" role="doc-endnote"> <p>Adtech’s actual efficiency level is <a href="https://twitter.com/nandoodles/status/1345774768746852353">a whole other story</a>.&#160;<a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:5" role="doc-endnote"> <p>No, I’m not into “Walmart”, thanks Twitter&#160;<a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> </ol> </section> Unsubscribe: Impossible https://mrpatto.com/2023/01/09/few-things-irritate.html Mon, 09 Jan 2023 13:46:13 +1100 http://mrpatto.micro.blog/2023/01/09/few-things-irritate.html <p>Few things irritate me more than companies that let you sign up instantly on their website, but ensure unsubscribing takes an epic quest.</p> <p>The next Mission:Impossible movie is actually based on Tom Cruise&rsquo;s attempt to cancel a subscription to a newspaper.</p> <img src="https://mrpatto.micro.blog/uploads/2023/13cae8065f.gif" width="600" height="337" alt="Clip of stunts from Mission:Impossible movies, with a caption below stating 'Attempting to unsubscribe from a service it took 23 seconds to sign up for'">