nopurplecrayon-blog

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Customer discovery

Who needs it? How to do it and why!

So...who needs it?

Everyone could stand to do a little customer discovery. Everyone? Yup, I mean everyone....because when you get right down to it, everyone could stand to have their assumptions overturned by talking to the people they have made these assumptions about...imagine what a wonderful world it would be if instead of just absorbing our assumptions, we went out (or stayed in), sat down with and actually listened to the people we’ve made these assumptions about! 

Have you seen that video where they put two people in a room and make them follow some steps that naturally let them learn about each other, then revealed what each person’s assumptions are (near the end), and gave them the option to either leave or discuss their views over a beer?

So, yes, especially, (wow, Ctrl b still works for bold!) in these troubling times, we all could use some customer discovery, even if we are not selling a product. Companies with a product to sell would have more at stake financially that’s all.

How to do it? I made the video below to test out Biteable. Feel free to check it out - it’s a less wordy version (because they don’t allow a lot of text!) than the following steps! https://biteable.com/watch/customer-discovery-2600878

That’s the easy part...learning the steps, I mean. The hard part is actually following them...because let’s face it, everyone would rather live secure in their assumptions, especially assumptions that have guided their decision making for their products etc etc

Step 1: Decide what are your assumptions about what you provide and what your customer needs or what their problem is. Come up with a Minimum Viable Product as an optional part of this step.

Step 2: Enlist the aid of at least one other person to go with you as a founder during customer discovery meetings

Step 3: Email or call your customers to set up an in person customer discovery meeting. (I guess, if in person is off the table, then Zoom can suffice, but make sure it’s video on)

Step 4: Have the meeting. Remember to listen more than you talk during the meeting. If you have an MVP, describe it and ask your customer about their thoughts. Don’t talk about selling or buying!

Step 5: Make sure you have asked your customers about their problems, needs, pains, gains (all the good stuff that’s in a value proposition canvas) and take note of the things that blow your assumptions out of the water. Remember there are two of you to keep you honest so take everything you both get from your customer discovery experience. 

How many customers should you interview? As many as possible. If you come close to 150, you would have done very well. It takes time, yes, but it is so worth it.

Still wondering, why do it? In case the above hasn’t given you a hint, you do it because you want to be sure the solution you are selling (or your general assumptions about your customers) is actually the solution your customers want! More often than not, you learn enough to help you change your hypotheses and come up with a better product that creates true customer delight. 

Tha-tha-that’s all folks!

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#NotMyPresident

The electoral college does not vote until December 19th. We have 40 days.

What does this mean?

Right now, the presidential election results are only a PROJECTION of the election outcome. They are PRELIMINARY RESULTS. A candidate still needs to earn 270 electoral votes to win. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, which means that more than 50% of the voters wanted her for president. The electoral college shouldn’t guarantee an override of the public’s opinion– and it doesn’t have to.

There are 21 states that do NOT restrict which candidate the electors vote for. Out of these 21, Hillary lost the following:

As you can see, these states are worth 166 electoral votes. As it currently stands, Hillary Clinton is projected to receive 232 votes. Trump is projected to win 306. This means that 37 votes need to be taken away from Trump to bring him down to 269. Hillary Clinton needs 38 votes ADDED to win 270. These electoral voters can also abstain, which means that they can refuse to vote for either candidate. If 37 of the voters within these states abstain then no candidate will have reached the required 270. In this case, the vote would be taken to the House.

Trump won Pennsylvania, a state that typically votes blue, by less than 100,000 votes. While it is highly unlikely to get all 20 electoral voters to cross party lines and vote democrat, it also isn’t impossible to convince a few of them to be “faithless electors.” We only need to convince 38 out of the 166. That is 23%. There are SIXTEEN states we need to focus our attention on.

A move like this would be unprecedented. However, as we all saw on November 8th, odds don’t guarantee reality. Trump had a less than 20% winning, yet given the circumstances, enough people came together and made it happen. We can make this happen. 

Ask yourself this: What do we have left to lose? We can stay complacent and accept that this country will be run by a racist, sexist, islamophobic, homophobic, ablest bigot, or we can at least try. 

How?

SPREAD THE WORD. Trend #NotMyPresident to let people know that we do not accept being led by a man who does not care about our wellbeing. Email your professors, email the dean of your colleges. The last thing a university wants is negative press. Millenials can take a stand, but that doesn’t mean we have to be the only ones. Church-led events helped bring a lot of disillusioned voters to the polls. Spread the word in any way possible, whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or even in person. Stage a peaceful protest. Hand out flyers. Let the people around you know that you don’t accept this man as your leader when he won’t even accept you as a citizen with your designated rights.

These 166 people need to face the consequences of electing this man. 

Do this for the people who couldn’t vote. Do this for the people who live in the very real fear of being deported. Do this for the people who will have to face the rise in hate crimes. Do this for the people who have a very real possibility of losing their rights. Do this for the people who will no longer afford necessities. 

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Psychological Implications of Unemployment: Work provides meaning and purpose and is directly linked to psychological and physical health. http://yourmindquility.com/blog/?p=45

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Who can resist trying for an Olympic VIP Viewing Party?!

Click her pic please and like it on Facebook - so we can share more sporting moments together!

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Love is patient...

1 Corinthians 13:4

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If you cannot -or will not- tell your friends when they are doing something wrong...or illegal, how are you any better than the people you criticise who are in the public eye for doing the same?

Me

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There's something about a challenge that I cannot resist...

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My version (the 2nd one) is better I think....

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Pep talk

Don't let your life's entire joy Be dependent on some silly boy Happiness must come from within your soul Nothing from without can ever make you whole

The void inside you alone must fill With inner peace and strength of will Will yourself to be empowered Not by life's trials to be devoured Will it with an attitude That focuses on gratitude

Praise God for life in its basic form Praise Him at night for a bed that's warm Praise Him by day for nature's wonders That never cease despite Man's plunders

Let your heart and soul embrace The gentle power of God's grace Praise Him with all your might then try To see your life through Heaven's eye It's precious and so very dear God wants to keep you in His care

Don't seek to throw it all away Just try to live it day by day Minute by minute and hour by hour That's how He dispenses grace and power Don't try to live in months and years Each day alone has enough of its cares

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Our feelings in the first moment are triggered by our circumstances. Happy news. Sad news. News that makes us angry. But in the second moment, and the third, our feelings are the produce of our chosen perspective. What angle of view do you choose when you examine the day that lies ahead of you and all the days that lie behind? What is your perspective? Where do you aim your eyes? What produce do you grow in the soil of your imagination and the sunshine of your life? Jeanne Hébuterne was a 19 year-old art student in 1917 who fell deeply in love with a dashing Italian artist named Amedeo Modigliani. A year later, their daughter was born out of wedlock and the Hébuterne family was horrified. When that little girl was 2, Modigliani died. The next day Jeanne Hébuterne threw herself out a fifth-story window. She was only 22 years old. Modigliani’s sister adopted the little girl and raised her as her own. The girl inherited no art. She died in 1984. What do you suppose the little girl felt as she was growing up? Did she say, "My father was an alcoholic, drug-addicted loon who refused to marry my mother when she became pregnant and my mother did not love me enough to raise me. She killed herself the day after my father died." Persons who would choose this perspective, and the feelings that accompany it, always say they are being “honest and realistic.” But is that really true? Would this perspective be any less honest or realistic? "My father was an artist whose paintings of my mother sell for many tens of millions of dollars. My mother was so deeply in love that she literally could not live without him. I am the product of that love." I do not know what the little girl chose to think, and feel, and believe. I know only that she had a choice. As do you.

Roy H. Williams (Monday Morning Memo January 21st, 2013)

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The new 2013 Nexus 7 is elegantly thin, lightning fast and bitingly sharp, surpassing its predecessor with a new camera, LED notifications and tons of improvements

It might be thin, elegantly so and lightning fast but with a smooth back, one fall is probably all it takes for it to be a glorified paperweight...why oh why did they remove the textured back? This is not a car, it doesn't have to be smooth to make it look or be fast!!

At least they finally put a back facing camera...which should have been there in the beginning!

Disappointingly Asus continues to ignore the need for a slot for external media...I guess this is what is going to be what's "fresh and new" in the next Nexus 7 in about a year or two...until then, have fun in the cloud...if you can get in.

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Another teenager has killed herself because of online bullying. Fourteen-year-old Hannah Smith hanged... (29077 signatures on petition)

Ask.fm has their role to play but let us also remember that teenagers have parents and their parents need to do some real parenting so that less of their teenagers (or children of any other age) do not reach the point where they have to seek help from strangers via the internet.

It is a sad commentary of society that persons have to resort to an inanimate object for comfort...and the voices coming through that inanimate object are not necessarily the voices they need to hear or that will be of comfort to them.

Of course the bitter irony should be evident that this particular teen was seeking comfort and instead found herself in a situation where she was subjected to anything but comfort from the source from which she sought it.

The full responsibility lies not just with Ask.fm but with all persons with whom this teenager came in contact and who did not give the comfort she needed.

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I am a 56 year old white man, whose father came from eastern European immigrants and whose mother came from the Confederate families of Virginia. I am married to an African American woman. I have a mixed race son of 17 years who I fear for every day.

On the day Trayvon Martin was...