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- The Connection Newsletter 69 - Happy Labor Day
The Connection Newsletter 69 - Happy Labor Day
The Connection Newsletter 69 - Happy Labor Day
Hello!
This is edition #69 of
The Connection
, the weekly email I send family, friends, and future friends (hello!) Glad you're here.
Happy Labor Day (if you’re based in the states). I just got back from a family holiday to Raleigh, NC to visit my college roommate Eddie and his family. It was a blast to watch our kids hang out together.
I recently bought a new (used) car using a third-party marketplace website - I won’t say which website. Long story short: it was the worst customer service experience I’ve ever experienced.
That’s essentially verbatim what I told them in our emails back and forth (snapshot below):
Anyways, we have a car and it’s on the road. All’s well that ends well.
But it got me thinking a lot about customer service. At Reforge this week, we’ve started inviting people to reserve their seats in our growth programs. This has made some people very happy.
Unfortunately, we’re only able to accept about 25% of applicants, which means we also have to tell a lot of people news they don’t want to hear.
There’s never a good way to deliver bad news. Over the years, I’ve developed a few guiding principles:
Do it fast. Unless you have a really good reason, don’t put it off. And “I don’t want them to feel bad” or “this is uncomfortable” is not a good reason.
Be clear. Explain your reasoning. Doesn’t have to be an essay, but it has to be fair and make sense.
Be empathetic. People are going to be upset. Adults -- especially smart, capable adults -- aren’t used to being rejected. Give them the space to be upset.
Never lie. You’ll get caught out. Maybe not this time, but next time. Or the time after. And no amount of money can buy back your reputation.
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Technology and Psychology
Source: YouTube
. You’ve probably noticed the use of exaggerated facial reactions in the video thumbnails - turns out it has a name: YouTube Face clickbait. And now I literally can’t stop seeing it
everywhere
.
“At some point, a user discovered that a catchy preview image tended to trigger potential viewers’ curiosity enough that they clicked through more frequently. Most likely this notion was inspired by other forms of clickbait (in style, it seems to be a mix of ~2012 Facebook newsfeed viral garbage with generic chumbox aesthetics). Then another user discovered that including a facial reaction tended to boost views further (perhaps manipulating some kind of primal feeling of empathy or morbid curiosity in the pain of others?). Over time, view count metrics gradually pushed these facial reactions into more exaggerated expressions, making everyone look like extras in a Soundgarden music video.”
Source: Unsplash
. Hate following (when your following of a person or brand on social media leads to an unhealthy and irrational distaste and the only reason you follow is to evoke this emotion) has taken the next logical step in its evolution: the unfluencer.
“Meet the unfluencer, the person who makes me want to do the opposite of whatever she’s doing and throw out whatever I already own that she has posted about.”
. Lambda School is an online coding program that’s free until you finish and get a job. This is done via an income-share agreement (ISA): students pay nothing while attending the school and then pay a portion of their earnings once they’re employed.
Overall, multiple avenues to pursue higher-education is a good thing. Critics are eager to point out that this model often costs students more than they think, or call foul play on what they see as deceptive marketing practices (“learn to code” → “get programming job with good salary” → “happy life”).
But how is this any different than the higher-education options currently available to us? A 4-year degree at both public and private universities often cost more than students think (69% of college students took out student loans, and they graduated with an average debt of $29,800 -
). In terms of marketing… show me a company, brand, or institution that doesn’t market this way? Universities, politicians, the National Guard, the Army, luxury car brands, testosterone pills and push-up bras all follow this formula.
Relationships
Source: Brian Rea via The New York Times
. Amy shared this with me, and it was sweetly reminiscent of our own relationship, when we decided to stay in a 2-year long-distance relationship after six weeks of knowing one another.
In her post from 6 years ago, Amy
:
Traveling With Toddlers. This 7-minute rule is an insanely practical tip. What about the flights, you ask? They’re actually deceptively straight forward (that is, unless you encounter a napping failure). Take your trip time (i.e. CPH to LAX is 11 hours), convert it to minutes and divide it by 7.Why seven? If you’ve got a child who isn’t iPad distractible (i.e. under the age of 3), the burden of entertainment will fall squarely on you. And our empirical observation is that you can entertain said child for seven minutes, before they demand the court jester find something new. Since 11 * 60 / 7 equals 94, you are now tasked with finding 94 activities with your little one.Trip to the bathroom. One.Playing with two cups. Two.Opening and closing an Airpod case. Three.Restaurants
Source: The Hustle
. I’m a huge Danny Meyer fan (see my notes on his book, Setting The Table). This is how his burger chain - one of the world’s fastest-growing burger chains -- succeeds by acting like a start-up.
Shake Shack favors an approach more in line with iterative design. It moves quickly, sometimes bringing an item from the kitchen to customers in its NYC test restaurant in a matter of weeks.
Once an item is on the menu upstairs, it collects real-time feedback (through questionnaires, qualitative observation, and sales data) and uses it to fine-tune things. If the item performs exceptionally well, they may opt to release it in a few other restaurants around the US, in markets where they perceive it could hit.
From there, they assess whether or not the item has the potential to go national (this was the case with their Chicken Bites, which excelled at every stage).
A man’s dying request for restaurant recommendations goes viral. Restaurants comped him some of his last -- and best -- meals. He passed two months later.
Entertainment
. Hate or love him, you can’t help but watch Conor McGregor. Even when he stumbles, he’s a riveting subject in front of the camera.
. Apple’s big play into original, scripted content is an expensive one.
The Morning Show will feature Reese Witherspoon, Steve Carell, and Jennifer Aniston in an effort to draw in new viewers. Each of those big names will make $1.25m per episode -- well more than 2x as much as the stars of Game of Thrones, the next most expensive show in history. According to the Financial Times, every single episode of Apple’s The Morning Show will cost more than Game of Thrones’ no-expense-spared $15m finale.
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