Tag: change

Ranking opinions

FabrizioLeave a comment

A practical way to rank opinions.

  1. Opinions based on large datasets across similar situations. This is academic research or market research.
  2. Opinions based on limited datasets of the current situation. This is personal and direct experience.
  3. Opinions based on limited datasets across similar situations. This is personal and past experience or, typically, business books and good blogs, online courses, podcasts, etc.
  4. Opinions based on one or two datapoints across situations that might or might not be similar to the current one. This is anecdotical knowledge, and still where probably most online content nowadays fall into.
  5. Opinions based on beliefs and feelings. This is where most companies and teams die.

Aim for 1 or 2 when you have to make decisions that matter. Use 3 to broaden your perspective, but carefully understand how to filter through it. Entertain yourself with a controlled amount of 4. Run when people start arguing based on 5.

It would be fair to rank this post a 3.

No, thanks

FabrizioLeave a comment

What is valuable to your audience?

We design experiences with our own benefit in mind, trying to make life easier for us, adding an additional step so that we don’t have to do some more work.

And the burden of all this, of course, is on the user. Who has options and kindly says, no thanks.

Elaborate

FabrizioLeave a comment

The Flickr for videos.

A Netflix for video games.

The Airbnb for parking.

It’s a great way to describe what your product does, but do you and your team understand what that means? What are the characteristics of the original that you believe you have? What will ensure that you will still be in that same game in the future? Or is it a trick to cheat your stakeholders into believing you will get to a similar valuation?

It is a useful exercise to clarify what you mean by taking this useful shortcut. It brings your team together and creates alignment throughout the company. It gives you milestones to look forward to and a manifesto customers can buy into.

Start with:

  • What features matter to the original and to us alike.
  • What parts of both stories are common and what are not.
  • How do we ensure we continue on the same path.

A matter of responsibility

FabrizioLeave a comment

Feedback is not a command. Yet many, both givers and receivers, take it as such.

Feedback is a way to open the mind to a different approach, to something that had not been considered, to a new interpretation. Then, it is up to the receiver to filter it with their knowledge, expertise, purpose, to decide what to keep and what to let go.

Feedback is no judgement and no decision.

At any point, the receiver has the power to decide on the actions that will be taken. They are responsible for the final results.

Exactly the same

FabrizioLeave a comment

It’s not enough that you make your story clear for yourself. You also have to make it clear for those you serve.

Most companies have a clear idea of why they are in business, of the problem they solve, of the new world they want to build. But then they stop there. They fail to put in the work that is necessary to spread the word, to tie goals into their vision, to buy others into their perspective. And that’s why most companies feel like they are exactly the same.

Differentiation also means leveraging that unique story and making it relatable. If you don’t understand this, you are in a perfect competition.

If you’re innovating in a nascent market, the push for recognition of your product category needs to be a major chunk of your go-to-market strategy.

Stewart Butterfield, From 0 to $1B