As I explore the social media customer service space – trying to discover and connect, I am learning quite a bit.
Should I join the fray and blog about what I am learning in order to share and establish some sort of profile or authority? I’m concerned that there is so much of the same crap out there that what I have to add – which I consider to be quite disruptive/provocative ideas – will simply get drowned out.
Also, each new blogger is making the problem of finding the useful stuff even harder – a self defeating act. There is a need for some really intelligent curation that helps people find useful and actionable content.
For these reasons, I’m not convinced of the effectiveness of blogging. For each of the most successful, most widely read blogs out there , there are hundreds of thousands that are churning out content that either no one cares about or no one can find. And blogging is deceptive – it feels good to express your ideas (for me , most of the time , this is all I want – pah! who needs readers) – but with my startup, I want people to consider these disruptive ideas and collaborate with me to bring them to fruition, test them and help everyone.
But if I don’t blog – what shall I do instead? I’m open to ideas.
Not sure what to make of this week. It’s a bit like being in the Tom Hanks movie ‘The Terminal’. I’m stuck but actually while I’m in this state of suspension there are really interesting things happening, but mostly I’m still stuck. Unlike Tom Hanks, my becoming unstuck is in my hands, I just don’t know how or I’m currently too scared to try – perhaps a bit of both. The former I can learn and the latter I will outgrow in time and by taking small risks.
Here is my check in:
Glad that my Spanish language exchange is really going well. Duolingo is great, but it is no substitute for actually getting into really interesting conversations with a native speaker.
Sad that I will be away from my family for 5 weeks while go do some coaching work.
Glad that there are Spanish language meetups where I’ll be, so I can keep up
Mad that I have not cracked this sales thing. I think I need to get a mentor/coach. That will be my task today – understand what I want help with!
Glad that I will have 5 weeks of doing something else primarily and some focused time in a different location to put into overcoming what is currently got me stuck.
I’m grateful for being able to reflect on things, sometimes too deeply – but that is a small price to pay for being able to reflect and learn.
I’m confused and stuck and in.
Improve On…
Completing blog posts I have started
Being more patient with this journey. Overnight successes take a long time to make.
Today
Blog. I’m trying to do 3 a day (this one, a personal one and one for ServiceChat about customer service).
Talk to more customers
Continue with the promo work for Twumps and BizBuzz. Not quite 20 hits/day but getting there (easier on Bizbuzz than Twumps).
This is a notice to my Skype contacts:
Skype (and others) have been spying on their users on behalf of the United States security apparatus for a long time. I do not want to be spied on any longer, so I’m closing my account, it will remain dormant and unused from today (15/July/2013) and cancelled on 01/August/2013.
I am currently researching alternatives, however you may contact me on Twitter or by email in the meantime and we can arrange a voice call (all of which are also compromised, I’m sure!).
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about an experiment to see if I could consistently and sustainably fund good causes through an online product/service.
I’m delighted to release the first version of Twumps – my social network trading game, built for social good. Right now it is beta – which means it works (pretty well actually) but is actively being tested and might break. It also means that I’m on standby to fix it pretty quickly if it breaks and that I’m super ready to chat to people to make it better.
Inspiration
Twumps is inspired by Top Trumps – the card trading series of games. In Twumps, instead of super heroes, you have your followers from Twitter (who have stats!). I’ve varied it a little to make it faster to play and perhaps a little more interesting.
Each player builds a stash of cards created from upto 100 of their twitter followers
Each game is between 2 players and a deck made up of 10 of their cards. They play until they have turned over all their cards. Each turn is played by the ‘turn starter’ picking a statistic from their displayed card that they believe can beat the equivalent statistic on their opponents drawn card. A player wins the turn by having a higher stat than their opponent’s card. A game is won by the person who won most cards.
The winning player gets to keep those followers (only in Twumps – not in Twitter – sorry!). The losing player does not keep the cards they won in the game.
A player’s total wins are used to determine their place in the leaderboard:
Easy to Play
Twumps is really easy to play and I have taken feedback from early players that they would appreciate a tour of how to use get about in the game. There is only one view in the game – your current card. I may add a little more complexity later, but for now, you simply select a stat from the next card in your game deck. Check out bits of the tour:
What Next?
Building what I have is only the first step – getting something out there that people can play, derive some enjoyment from. The next steps are getting as many people playing it as possible, getting their feedback to improve it and beginning to discover what I can charge for (it’s all donation based – but I think there should be minimums).
I really need your help
Twumps is a novel idea, to my knowledge there is nothing like this online anywhere. I’m going to do my best to get people to play and enjoy it.
But I really need your help with this.
If you are on Twitter, play it and challenge others.
Regardless, please tell everyone you know who uses Twitter, ask them to play it and tell their friends.
If there is something you feel can be improved tell me and I’ll most likely do it.
Share your ideas for improving it, join in. Playing Twumps is fun and you can be a part of something that will ultimately make beautiful things happen in the world.
Traction is vital, getting early customers to commit to using what I’m offering is very important. Both are vital and important for my finances and startup growth, sure – but mostly for my sanity.
I’m a maker and an artist. I make the art that is in my head. Many of the things I make are because I had a problem and I expressed a way to solve them. When I bring them to the market (as ineptly as I do) and expect some meaningful response, I am investing emotional energy into that. I care that I get a response – much more than the nature of that response. I can handle praise and rejection but much less so, apathy.
So my new strategy of trying to be found by prospective customers is off to a slow start, but a start nonetheless. Here is my check in:
Mad that I am really struggling to keep my schedule on track, my options for being flexible are limited when I start late and end later. If I start on time (9.30) , I am actually far more flexible to do other stuff (like going to the beach!) because I would have made some progress.
Glad that I can changed most things to get back to routine – this is a really valuable thing about working for myself.
Glad I had another idea and my technique for welcoming them and giving them a slot to explore them is successful at keeping me focused on finishing
I’m grateful for having different onion skins to other people and having mine not constrain me from being myself.
I’m in (onion skins and all).
Improve On…
Being a better marketeer – better meaning braver, more authentic, more dedicated, better organised. Avoid the schmoltz.
Being a better researcher – everything – my potential customers, competitors , collaborators.
Today
The trello board says it all. basically as much of the stuff I have on there as possible. Mostly blogs. But absolutely must…
Write ServiceChat blog post on ‘I am the greatest customer service expert in the world’.
Do some promotion work on Twumps and ServiceChat and get at least 20 unique visitors to each today.
The Trello board…
Ask yourself if you are doing everything* you can to be successful
* – whilst remaining congruent with your values, fair to those you love and kind to yourself
Every passing day re-affirms my fear. I have to back away from the code, close the IDE – quit doing what I love doing and start doing the other thing.
You know – the other thing, the hitting-the-phone, sell-your-vision, learn-the-problems, discover-your-customers, dine-with-rejection-and-unreturned-emails thing, you know Customer Development!
Now, I have a world of love for Eric Ries, Ash Maurya, Steve Blank and the other luminaries of the startup world. But they really could have done a better job of communicating how bloody tough it is to get to talk to customers, to handle the silence and the find the courage to carry on until you find the data you need (some might argue that the lack of feedback is plenty feedback – that is a different story).
This afternoon, I had the pleasure of 30 minutes of conversation with Kevin DeWalt, a really awesome and interesting guy with plenty of experience of creating companies and helping startups. He graciously offers 30 mins of free help to founders and startups via his site. I’ll blog more about that on a later post. Anyway, Kevin was really pragmatic and his view was really similar to @saintsal’s (from a couple of weeks ago). I have to spend most of my time out of the building, pounding the phones, the emails, knocking on doors (virtual and otherwise) and really get to meet prospects, so I can learn.
The last couple of weeks have presented some opportunities that I fully intend on exploring. So , what is my strategy?
I won’t be chasing customers. I tried that and they weren’t interested in talking to me. My new strategy is to help them find me – well at least this is my strategy for the next 3 weeks.
This means interviews, blogs and asking powerful questions about how all the businesses I am coming across do customer service. My intention is that these questions will attract the right people.
So it’s not so much ‘build it and they will come’, but more ‘ask it and the right people will answer’.
With this in mind, here is my check in.
Glad I have a plan, being lost is no fun when you got somewhere to go.
Glad there are people like Kevin DeWalt, Flavio Martins, @saintsal and Ian Golding who are open and invite you to seek their collaboration. Of course it is mutually beneficial – but their openness to connect is amazing.
Really mad that I’m succumbing to carbs – the sugary kind.
I’m grateful for the ability to reflect on my thoughts and the brilliance of others.
I’m in.
Improve On…
Consistent daily Spanish practice.
Testing my code. Recently I have been doing lots of test-free hacking.
My last post was about 2 weeks ago and you might have wondered where I disappeared to. Well, I’ll tell you.
I was feeling very disheartened about the lack of traction with ServiceChat. So I took some time away from ServiceChat – maintaining focus when you are down is hard, but it is precisely when you need it the most. This time was to try and get some perspective.
This time off was mostly spent building this and exploring alliances with leading customer service evangelists like Ian Golding and Flavio Martins (both of whom are graciously offered to write about bizbuzz and ServiceChat).
So here is my check in:
Glad I took some time out to think about whether ServiceChat is still what I should be doing. Right now, it is.
Glad I built Twumps as outlet for my disheartenment, it was fun and completely different.
Glad that I am discovering passionate people in the customer services/experience space.
Glad that my spanish one-to-one conversations are getting better and I am also being useful to my partner in his journey to learn english.
Glad an option to replenish my funding is getting stronger by the day.
Mad I have such a reaction to insect bites that has laid me low for today.
I’m grateful for the universe that conspires to help me be successful.
I’m in.
Improve On…
Keeping carbs out of my diet – especially the ones covered in sugar.
Today
Write this blog.
Start an insights blog post
Do some duolingo -I’m getting pretty consistent with this.
I was 25 when I watched “Jazz” the anthology by Ken Burns where he successfully introduces jazz music to a much wider audience. I love jazz and to be able to learn some of the dynamics of the bands and artists was hugely exciting.
Charlie “Bird” Parker was an exceptional saxophonist who helped create the bebop sound (and genre) and defined the music the influenced almost all other forms of popular music from that point. To many of his contemporaries, he was a genius . Yet he was also chronically addicted to heroin, though he was later rehabilitated from his addiction and seemingly remained clean till his death.
Why am I sharing this?
Well, I remember watching Jazz and especially learning about Charlie Parker who, as an aspiring saxophonist, I totally admired, At the height of his fame, his sound was adored by his contemporaries, almost worshipped. So much that many wanted to emulate it. But it was almost impossible to copy, so many variations, complex harmonies. Even Bird couldn’t teach you to play like him. In order to understand how one guy could be so brilliant – many who sought to gain the same abilities looked at his lifestyle and they saw heroin. Watching Jazz, I was shocked to learn that so of these performers, all pretty good in their own right, thought that perhaps his addiction gave him his abilities. So they took heroin too.
I see so many self-help blogs and the life-hacking culture that share so many ideas for improving one’s life. From weight loss to getting better at a language. I like to think all this information comes from a place of goodness – driven by the desire to share what has worked in one person to others. Yet they are sold as “this worked for me , it will work for you too”. In truth, you might get lucky and they might just work.
Start your day at 5.30am and go for a run! It will change your life.
Split your day into 90 minute sessions (because the science proves it) and you will get more done.
Fart before playing your numbers on the lottery, I won big, you will too. (ok, I made that one up).
My point is that what works for one person is not guaranteed to work for another. At best, one person’s experience is no more than a suggestion to another.
Lifelong curiousity is the real message
What makes one person explore a different routine to the one they have always had?
What motivates people to take up new skills or do weird experiments on themselves?
Often it is because something is not working they way they want. Often it is nothing more than seeking to answer “what might happen if…”.
This is such a powerful idea, one that fuels so much innovation and discovery and, I believe, is the central message of this life hacking, self help industry – which mostly sells the discoveries that are the result of curiosity.
But I think that most people who are into life hacking do not even realise that their discovery (as cool as it might be) is itself less unimportant than the spirit of curiosity through which they derived it. Curiosity to explore alternatives, to experiment and to discover.
I would much rather read about that than be peddled a 5.30AM run to start my day or a blended smoothie to boost my brain power.
We are each unique- even as the systems all around us want to make us believe we are not. The mainstream of everything requires that we can be categorised, grouped. How else do you understand 7 billion people? But we are each more than a category (easier to understand – we are each a category!). So let’s each find what works for us and contribute it into the larger pool of ideas that others can steal freely from as they emerge what works for them and as we do that, let us celebrate the spirit of curiosity that drives it all in the first place.
Learn to be curious about life, the universe and everything. You will live a better, more fulfilling life.
I’m sitting here not really wanting to do anything else but code. I know it’s wrong – I’ve built something I passionately believe is valuable but not getting to even talk to the people I believe it is valuable for is deeply disheartening.
It doesn’t mean ServiceChat isn’t valuable (I honestly don’t have enough data to answer that). It just means I suck at knocking on doors.
So here is my check in:
Mad that my reach outs to the individuals in companies, that I have identified have a need and a hunch that they give a damn, has not provided the access I was hoping for. Both those hypotheses remain unresolved.
Sad that I’m facing this whole thing alone. I have advisers, family and friends but no one really in the space with me. I am resistant to going out and finding a co-founder, much rather they found me.
Glad that this emotion is strong and empowering – in a weird way – it is sparking a survival instinct in me.
Mad that my spanish conversational meetup (intercambio) was so difficult, it seems the more I know (vocabulary and rules of structure) the less I am able to apply. Rules as binds, who knew!
Mad I feel so mad.
I’m grateful for perspective, without it I would think my problems were the most important in the world. They are not. I have options.
I’m still in.
Improve On…
Getting back to my routine – I seem to fall off it when I get emotionally weird, yet ironically it is what gives me a way back to form.
Being courageous and picking up the phone to call people and arrange conversations. Enough hiding behind emails!
Today
Start my ‘insights’ series on the ServiceChat blog – where I share what the data from bizbuzz is telling me (and has told me).
Get back on track with Duolingo – I’ve decided to focus on this as vs split my time between it and Rosetta Stone (which is good also, but not as effective for me).
