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dwyguyhikes · 4 years

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King’s Peak

26.8 mile roundtrip

5,118 feet elevation gain

Link: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/utah/kings-peak-utah-highpoint-trail

Time from trailhead to base camp at Dollar Lake: 3:50 (7.4 miles)

Time from base camp to summit: 3:45 (6 miles)

Time from summit to base camp: 3:20 (6 miles)

Time from base camp to trailhead: 3:14 (7.4 miles)

Time to finally begin this incredibly ambitious goal of summiting the highest point in every state! I decided to start with the closest one to me: King’s Peak in Utah. I’d gotten an invitation from Nick to join me, but wanted to give solo camping a whirl and see about doing this first highpoint on my own.

The trailhead was about a 3 hour drive from Salt Lake City, and it took me through southeast Wyoming. The drive there was pretty easy, except for one road block caused my some unruly sheep that refused to get out of the road. I also spent the last hour or so on a hole-ridden dirt road, and lemme tell you that a Ford Taurus was not designed for that kind of terrain.

As you’re driving, you can see King’s Peak clearly standing out from the surrounding mountains. I had a kind of minor freakout when I saw this, and I started to question if this was really a good idea to do on my own. “You’re seriously going to climb that tall ass mountain? By yourself? Are you nuts?” I quickly pushed these thoughts out with a different one: “Hell yeah I’m fucking climbing that. Because I’m the fucking man.”

I got to the trailhead and chatted with some people who were getting back. They said the weather was too bad and they had to turn back, but with the weather shifting they thought I’d have a good shot at it. I put on my backpack and started my trek to Dollar Lake where I’d set up camp for the night.

This was my first backpacking trip in about a year, and I forgot how much hiking with a full backpack SUCKED. I had also just played hockey for the first time in about 3 months, and I had kind of forgotten how much skating uses your hips. As such, the first 3 miles involved the lower half of my body crying out in pain, but I carried on.

The hike in was super peaceful, and I really enjoyed the lonely walk through the forest. I’m glad I had decided to buy a map before heading out, because Dollar Lake wasn’t clearly marked. I did some minor bushwhacking toward where I thought it would be, and after a bit of wandering around I was able to find it. I set up my tent, cooked up some dinner, and got ready for a long day ahead. I knew there wouldn’t be bears, but I still climbed a tree about 100 yards from camp to secure my backpack with food out of reach just in case.

Trying to sleep that night turned into a lost cause. It was ridiculously windy (40 mph gusts), so every few minutes it felt like my tent was blowing away. I also kept hearing footsteps outside my tent, though that could have just been my ears playing tricks on me. At around midnight a helicopter was flying around, too. To add onto all that, my joints were still killing me and I couldn’t get comfortable. I laid there all night waiting for sleep to take over, but I don’t think I got any real shut-eye until about 4 am. With my alarm going off at 6, I knew I wasn’t going to have a good time.

6 am came and I snoozed a few times before getting going. I had some oatmeal and coffee, put together my day pack (stupidly without sunscreen, bear-spray, or my med-kit… whoops) and started heading toward the summit. There were a few sketchy snow traverses, but I had no issues making a good pace and passing a few other groups. I did have some issues staying on the trail since it wasn’t clearly marked, and I think at one point I was on the shortcut called Gunsight Pass before realizing and bushwhacking back to the trail. I had read that Gunsight Pass could get sketchy, and I didn’t want to take any chances since I was by myself.

This hike was GRUELING! It was steep and wet, and there was no cover from the sun. I had to take breaks every 20 minutes, but thankfully there were plenty of places to re-fill my water. I quickly realized that checking the mileage at every break wasn’t helping me at all, and I just focused on keeping one foot in front of the other. It was oddly meditative just listening to my footsteps and my heavy breath as I carried onward and upward.

Close to the summit, the trail just stops and you have to scramble up some scree. The wind gusts were still coming, so I decided to leave my backpack (aka my water and food) and focus on my balance. Thinking I was much closer to the top than I actually was, this proved to be a mistake. That climb to the summit was probably the most difficult part of the whole hike, but that feeling of finally getting to the top… pure joy. For the time being, I was the tallest person in Utah! I felt incredibly accomplished, but I also felt incredibly vulnerable when the winds started tossing me around a bit. I stayed only for a hot second to take some pictures before making my way down.

On the way down I found a lot of snow and developed a shortcut instead of scrambling across the scree: if I run across the snow like I’m doing hockey crossovers, I could cover distance in half the time. I fell a few times but never slid very far because I had a pole to self-arrest. While I saved a ton of time, I quickly realized that I was coming down the east side of the mountain, and my backpack was on the north side… all that time saved was quickly lost when I had to go BACK up the mountain. Oh well, I got back to it and had the Snickers bar I was saving for my lowest moment and all felt right in the world.

The hike back to basecamp was largely uneventful except where I ended up off the trail a few times. The trail wasn’t well marked, and there were so many offshoots that it was easy to get sidetracked. Luckily I had enough of a mental compass to realize I was walking on trails I’d never been on before. More bushwhacking (what else is new) led me back to trail. After some thought, I figured I’d try to hike back to the car rather than stay another night in the wind here, so I ran a lot of the downhill parts to make up time.

When I finally made it back to camp, I was NOT having a good time. My feet were wet, my shirt was drenched, and I was definitely overheating. I laid down in the tent for about 2 minutes before quickly taking off most of my clothes and running to soak in the lake. That helped a ton. I also knew that another night of no sleep was only going to make things worse, so I sucked it up and packed up camp.

The hike back to the car was absolutely brutal. I had just finished 6 of the steepest uphill miles I’ve ever hiked, then ran 6 miles back, and now I was doing another 7.4 with a full backpack? My body was NOT happy. My head was throbbing and I could hear all my joints screaming out saying “boi what is u doing??!?!” Luckily my medkit had aspirin in it, so I popped that and kept pushing on. I stopped to chat with one couple who told me that the helicopter I heard last night was looking for a kid who got lost at Dollar Lake. He went missing around midnight, and his dad apparently found him at 11 am the next morning playing like nothing had happened. Kids are wild.

That hike back was mentally one of the tougher hikes of my life. I was checking the mileage way too often. Funnily enough I’ve started equating all my mileage to my runs around Baltimore: “Ok 2 miles left. That’s just from the bridge by the old Chipotle back to the house. Just gotta around the aquarium then along the harbor then the promenade. That’s nothing.”

I finally stumbled to the car around 6:30, eager to take off my pack and boots. If you haven’t backpacked before, I can assure you that finally taking off your pack is one of the BEST feelings in the world. With my trek done, I had my sights set on a Wendy’s frosty next, so booked it straight back to civilization.

All in all, this was an incredible experience, but I don’t think I’d do it again. As an introvert, I really enjoyed the alone time, but I have to admit that I got really lonely. I think these kinds of experiences (aka suffering) are best enjoyed when shared, so I don’t think I’ll be doing another solo trip for quite some time.

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ryanpagella-blog · 5 years

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I hope that we have a work-from-home revolution coming out this pandemic.

My last 3 jobs allowed me to work from home. Some days I would go into the office for meetings, but mostly I worked in my home office and eventually went completely remote. For me: I found that I was more productive, focused, de-stressed, sleeping more, I wasn't rushing, I was eating better, and I had almost zero anxiety. I have been saying for years that many of our jobs can be done remotely, especially jobs that are in offices or cubicle farms which have no in-person interfacing with clients. It's 2020, it's time for things to change, and this pandemic may be push we need to do it.

That being said, there are many many jobs that people DO need to be in for, and that is completely respectable and understandable as well. For some people, they don't want to work from home because they would be distracted by family, children, or pets, so going into the office is sometimes a relief for them -- But the option to work from home needs to be something businesses need to be less hesitant on, and they are about to see that during this time.

For many of you who are now working at home, here is some advice I have for you:

1) Set a schedule for yourself. You know when everyone is working and your work schedule, but make sure to wake up at the same time every day and stop working at the same time every day. It's really easy to get sucked into a project past your normally scheduled hours because you're already at home anyway and you can be like "eh, why not."

2) Make real meals for yourself! You will probably still have a lunch break scheduled into your day, and if you don't: Take one. I don't mean cook a full-course meal, but I would take the time to at least throw some veggies and chicken into the frying pan briefly and eat those for lunch.

3) Morning conference calls! This is an important one. Interface with your staff and team at the same scheduled time every day. I recommend Go To Meeting because you can mute your staff when they are talking over each other and they have to click a little button to raise their hand to speak. I also recommend Zoom. It's also important to end these meetings at the same time every day because otherwise everyone will keep talking.

4) Get a chat app! If your company doesn't already use one, shame on them. We live in the technological future where we have the ability to communicate in so many different ways. I personally like Slack for my work chats. You can create different channels for functions such as "General" "Marketing" "Financials" "Travel" etc. You can also have private group chats and direct messages. I have always been a fan of Slack.

5) Make a to-do list for yourself in the morning before you start work, and again at the beginning of your work day. I wake up every morning and meditate, then I list off all of my personal goals every day. My friend Gabriel recommended going from highest to lowest priority. Then I leave a big blank spot to fill in my work responsibilities for the day -- And boom! There you go, you have your day mapped out. Just don't get down on yourself if you don't cross everything off on your list.

6) Try to limit the amount of distractions you have around you. I've become very good at popping into my social media and not actually interacting with it when I am focused on work. It's tough because I often work in marketing, so I have to open up social media for that reason. So set time aside to do those things for you brain to relax.

7) I'm not anti-TV during work. I actually work better when I can have YouTube videos playing in the background, even if I'm not really paying attention to it. Sometimes it's better than music for me because I won't feel the need to get up and dance, and it also makes you feel less lonely if there is the sound of people talking in the background. Don't turn on Netflix, though. That is a time suck waiting to happen. For those of you who get too distracted by the TV, create yourself some music playlists. I recommend Spotify. It's cheap to use and everything is on there. Honestly, I don't want anyone spending money they shouldn't right now, so a great alternative is creating music playlists in YouTube.

8) Don't be tempted to clean your house or do your dishes during work time. I have the most trouble with this one.

9) Create a work space that is YOUR work space. Mine is in the in the living room, but when I sit here, I don't look at anything else. I put my desk facing the wall and directly out two windows for a reason.

10) Create a live document or use an app to track projects that everyone can update. I personally like Basecamp, but Asana and Trello are good options too. I also like utilizing Google Docs to have a live spreadsheet with tasks on them for us all to access. That worked really well at my last job.

11) Have an end of day check-in with your team. This does NOT need to be a conference call. Hop into your group chat and have everyone list off what they got done. They virtually high five each other and say "see you tomorrow." THEN YOU DON'T HAVE TO DRIVE HOME AND IT'S FANTASTIC AND YOU CAN JUST GET ON WITH THE REST OF YOUR DAY.

I really hope this work-from-home perspective changes for the better amidst this weird time. I am starting to see a lot of good come out of this universal slow down. It's time for everything to be re-evaluated, and how we work is one of them.

#work from home #work #desk #home office #office #coronavirus #covid19

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wandernkevin · 5 years

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Last Year’s Misadventure on the Superior Hiking Trail

I sit here today at Trout Creek Camp on the Superior Hiking Trail, every time I come out here people say it will be flowing… yet again! Trout Creek is dry, I’ve never seen any water over there. Anyway, I’m here today on day 0, I never really count the first day because you have to get where you’re going before you head out, I mean I usually spend the night before on the trail then begin the real hiking. So, less than 2 miles today.

This is the most people I’ve ever seen at the Trout Creek Campsite, there is a group of 8 young people here and I see a lot of heavy gear, including, a full-size ceramic coated pot, the thing is HUGE! I ain’t seen one of the things since the last time I went to a group camp for a school trip.

I don’t plan on eating tonight because I ate way too much on the way up here, I knew that’s how it would go so I didn’t pack any food for today. Water on the other hand, well I’m drinking a lot, temperatures are great, nice and cool, but it’s been a while since I’ve been out here. I noticed my water filter is a little tight, hopefully, it doesn’t clog, the problem isn’t the filter, the problem is backflushing a filter with sink water, I’ve heard there’s too much gunk in sink water and it calcifies the filter, user error. Sawyers are getting cheaper these days so I’ll grab another one before my next adventure. Also, they have a fitting so you can backflush with your clean water bottle. I totally have to get one of those, it just makes so much more sense than the plunger.

Once again, I proved the scent proof bags I use for a food bag liner work. Because yet again a chipmunk hopped right passed the bag was laying on the ground. While we are on the subject of food bags, Trout Creek Camp can be a pain to find somewhere to hang your food.

Day 1, Trout Creek Camp to Devil’s Track

I lost the top to my phone mount, so… no cool overlook pictures. I left trout creek this morning and managed to make it to Devil’s Track! I had to descend into the canyon at Devil’s Track at night which seemed sketchy as the edge of the trail was pitch black. I can only assume there’s a cliff there. I’m very interested in seeing what’s out there, I’m staying at the west camp. It seems nice, today was my first ever 20-mile day! The new insoles are working great. Before I wouldn’t even have attempted 20 miles, my feet would start feeling like this after 10. Mission success, I’m not going to bother eating, I took a break at the Pincushion Mountain Trailhead and ate some jerky and banana chips there. Shame, I was looking forward to a hot meal. I managed to gather a liter of water in the dark, I drank half now and I already know I’m going to wake up in the night thirsty so I’ll save the rest for that, perhaps I’ll make the Ramen for breakfast.

Day 2, Let the Misadventure Begin!

I was doing so well, but my sawyer bag ruptured, the sawyer was just too calcified to work right, it too much pressure to filter the water and BAM, the bag separated at the top. It’s just sitting over there taunting me. I have some bad luck with water filters, on the thru-hike, last year, guess what? Yep, the filter failed. So now I have to turn back. Lesson learned, don’t backwash sawyers with tap water. Another lesson also finally learned, bring a backup for water treatment. Boiling does not count! It takes way too long to cover good ground when you have to boil. I’m thinking about iodine, it’s easy, fast and light. But it tastes horrible, I’ve used it before in a 2-week excursion in the Canadian side of Lake of the woods, fortunately, someone had a filter. That was a long time ago, back when the only filters available were like $300+ and clogged pretty fast.

Just remember, with important things like water when you are out in the wilderness, redundancy is key. What would happen if I needed to get off the trail ASAP and boiling was just delaying me? Could become a life-threatening situation pretty quick.

I was able to get off the trail, I hiked back to the Pincushion Trailhead, then through Grand Marais and most of the way to Cascade River State Park along Highway 61 before finally I was able to hitch a ride, two guys in a big truck really helped me out. Also, that was the third time I’ve had to hitchhike, so 3/3 success rate, I have nothing to complain about.

I already ordered a new filter, I’m waiting at base camp until it arrives, then I’ll head back out.

Although I failed to complete my challenge, from the beginning this has been about hiking 20 mile days, which I succeeded. Then completing the North Country Trail hike 100 challenge. So, there will be an update in route but nothing is gonna stop me from getting the 2018 patches. NOTHING.

The Updated Route

The new route is pretty much the same as the old one just shorter as I am running out of time to complete the 100-mile challenge. With my existing 40 miles the below route will total 100.7 miles:

Cascade – Bally creek pond 11.2 (Hike 50 Challenge complete) Bally Creek pond – Devil’s Track 10.5 Devil’s track – Kimball 9 Kimball – Devil’s Track 9 Devil’s Track – cascade 21 (hike 100 challenge complete)

One last push on the way back to cascade doing 21 miles, I know it can be done! I’ll have a nice state park campsite and a shower waiting for me when I get back.

Pre-Hike Again, in Grand Marais, Artists Point, and Cascade River State Park

I stopped in Grand Marais to eat some pizza with a view before heading to the campground. Artists Point is a great place to stop and eat some food from town.

This time I’m staying at the Cascade River State Park Campground, got site #30 non-electric, close to the showers, this is great for a tent, there’s a little spot inset in the back to set up. Also, in case you are wondering, the Cascade River State Park shower facility has always been clean and well maintained every time I’ve been here. It’s a newer facility and I have to say it’s my favorite out of the North Shore State Parks. I do have one problem though, the vending machine in the trail center used to have root beer, now it doesn’t and that is disappointing. I’m already settled in and don’t want to go back into town.

Cascade River State Park to Bally Creek Pond Camp South

I head out around 7 – 8 am, had a smooth start for the most part. The GoPro already died, it just can’t handle 40° nights…

I’m taking a lunch break alongside the cascade river, as you can see from the photo below, it was a nice place to teak a break!

Made it to bally creek pond camp south, I’m staying here for the night. Boy, it’s chilly with the wind blowing out here.

The water at the bally creek campsites comes from the pond, filtered with a sawyer it tastes earthy but clean. The CNOC bottle I got works great! It grabs 2 liters out of the pond real fast. Check out the Cnoc Outdoors Vecto 2L Water Container, 28mm, Orange on Amazon – https://amzn.to/2QOJGkG *.

I still have a breakfast bar, a cliff bar and a Ramen that I can eat today. I had a 400 calorie candy bar for breakfast so I have some extra food for today. I need to wait until at least 6 pm to make the Ramen. I want the warm food in the belly closer to bedtime. I’ll have to wait until then to use the new BRS stove – https://amzn.to/2yiQRui *. I boiled 2 cups at basecamp with it and I was impressed. I’m looking forward to using it the field.

A Rainy Day Back to Devil’s Track West Camp

Sleeping pad has a small leak, had to reinflate several times throughout the morning. I’m not going to be able to find the leak without soapy water, so I’ll just be dealing with it for now. I have the REI flash all season (regular wide), I do like it but people have had some problems with it. I’m hoping this is just a pinhole leak. Otherwise, if I can’t find the leak I’ll return it.

Oh, boy did it rain today! Started around when I left camp and stopped when I got to Devil’s Track West. My poncho did a great job keeping everything dry, it’s heavy but it works so well, I don’t really want to replace it. My hat worked beautifully as well, keeping my head dry from the rain. My shoes are soaked, not much I can do about that. I’m more concerned that the temps for the rest of the hike have lows down to 32° and my sleeping pad is leaking… If I could find the hole I could patch it.

Quite the Superior Hiking Trail Misadventure

I’m at Devil’s Track Camp West, AGAIN. It’s going to be a cold night at 34°, I timed the leak on the sleeping pad. It lasts 19 minutes until my butt hits the cold ground. I put my z-seat under there, that should buy me some time before my core touches the ground. It’ll be cold enough to instantly wake up. At that point, I will reinflate the sleeping pad. It’s too dangerous in these temperatures not having a trustworthy sleeping pad. Once again it’s time to turn around… The sleeping pad completely failed. It’s gonna be a rough night, I miss my x-therm, I should have just got the long version, that would have lasted.

At least the North Country Trail Hike 50 is complete…

Just missed the freeze!

Being out on the trail without a sleeping pad in freezing weather is dangerous, the ground will suck the heat right out of you, leaving you hypothermic. I pushed hard over 20 miles to get back to cascade, gear heavy with water from the rain days prior, boots soaked through, the big freeze incoming, and freezing lake winds the pierce right through your entire being. But I made it back so hey, I call it a success…

So I’m off the trail again, but I still have a reservation at Cascade River State Park Campground for Sunday. I’m going to day hike the remaining 20 miles, 10 on Sunday and 10 on Monday. I’ll still be pushing forward to cover the previous route but I won’t be camping on the trail, I’ll be in the nice warm camper car.

Pincushion Trailhead to Woods Creek Camp and Back

I spent the better part of two weeks trying to cross the bridge over the Devil’s Track river, and finally today there was no gear failure! It’s crazy to think I had gear fail in the same place twice in a row, the filter and the sleeping pad.

The views from this side of the river are spectacular as you can see from the photo of Devil’s Track Canyon and Lake Superior on the horizon. This was taken near the Barrier Falls Overlook, which at first was disappointing because you can’t see Barrier Falls, too many trees in the way. It took some effort to finally get out here given the gear situation but it was still well worth it.

After the hike, I stopped at the Angry Trout Cafe and had a bison tenderloin and it was absolutely delicious, so much that I had to share it here!

Lindskog Rd Trailhead 5 miles Out and Back

Today I was leaving Cascade River State Park to finish the hike and a wolf walked right up to my car! Got about two feet away and slowed down before continuing on up the entrance road. I was so stunned by the unexpected encounter that I couldn’t even grab the camera to shoot some photos. Part of me is disappointed I didn’t grab the camera, but it is more important to capture the memory of an experience in your mind before taking pictures, I’m an adventurer, I don’t consider myself a photographer. My adventure is more important to me that capturing it on film, but it would have been pretty sweet. Back to the hike!

This was a pretty average hike for me to be honest, the trail follows woods creek for a while. I noticed that the water is so much clearer here, I refilled my bottles at Duffree Creek and the water is almost crystal clear with just the slightest brown tinge from tannins in the water, which is common in the forest. The most notable part of this hike was the length of this unobstructed view of Lake Superior from the trail, I don’t believe this is even an “official” overlook, It’s just part of the trail.

Finally, I Finished to NCT Hike 100 Challenge!

This is the second year I have finished the North Country Trail Hike 100, and this year they also had the Hike 50 Challenge which I also completed. I think this is a great program that motivates not just people like me, but everyone to get out there and hike the NCT in their state. Minnesota is fortunate that the Superior Hiking Trail follows this route, not only do you get some nice patches, but you also get great memories and the best views in the entire state.

I’ve been many places in my lifetime and I still stand by my saying that the north shore of Minnesota is the most beautiful and unique place I’ve ever been.

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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A LOT OF WELL-KNOWN APPLICATIONS ARE NOW, LIKE BASECAMP, WRITTEN BY JUST ONE PROGRAMMER

It's common in technology for an innovation that decreases the cost of failing is becoming lower, we should expect founders to do it all yourself. It was no coincidence that so many famous speakers are described as motivational speakers.1 What if startups are both a new economic phase and also a type of business that flourishes in certain places that specialize in it—that Silicon Valley specializes in startups in the same way Los Angeles specializes in movies, or New York in finance.2 He was like Michael Jordan. Usually their motives are mixed. There's an idea that has turned out to be worth keeping; the bulk of it has had no effect at all.3 Hell if I know. At one end of the Bubble and still haven't invested. Within a few decades ago the largest organizations tended to be followed only by outsiders. When there's something in a painting that works very well, you can manufacture them by taking any project usually done by multiple people and trying to do it mean she tends to get written out of YC's history. The only defense is to isolate yourself, as communist countries did in the twentieth century.

It won't seem so preposterous in 10,000 years.4 A new medium appears, and people in these fields tend to be forced to work on problems you can treat formally, rather than for any practical need. The government knows better than to get into the novel business, but in other fields where they have to have practical applications. It can be worth participating in a corrupt contest, however, if it's followed by another that isn't corrupt.5 Bad as things look now, there is a lot of people make the same mistake I did. Like it or not, we started out doing. I think the top firms will actually make more money as founders' bitches than their bosses.6 A huge step, admittedly, and one could make a clean break just by taking a vote?7 And while it's impossible to say what is a lot of instincts, this one wasn't designed for the world we now live in. Of all the reasons we lie to kids is how broad the conspiracy is.

And yet you won't be able to test in an hour, then you have the prospect of an immediate reward to motivate you. For products of nature that might work.8 Tradition is less of a guide, not just because fakers and opportunists are annoying, but because the principles underlying the most dynamic part of the economy always does, in everything from salaries to standards of dress. Western philosophy really begins with Socrates, Plato, and particularly in oil painting. I've never heard of a case where it worked. So what if some of the fund back to the institutional investors who supplied it, because they grow into the trees of the economy tend to be forced to work on a variety of things. Surely I'm not claiming that ideas have to have practical applications to be interesting? There are still a lot of time worrying about what I should do.

But there is a good way to learn.9 Into this already bad situation comes the third problem: Sarbanes-Oxley. Actually, there are several ideas mixed together in the concept of a state machine, in case you have to be good, but it has to be better at this than others. For good programmers, one of which is: You shouldn't put the blame on one parent, because divorce is never only one person's fault.10 All kids know it. We'd like to meet if you are. Chardin decided to skip all that and paint ordinary things as he saw them.11

If they aren't an X, why are they attached to all these arbitrary beliefs and customs? But I don't think this is a coincidence. So if one group abandons this territory, there will always be others ready to occupy it.12 Well, that may be fine advice for a bunch of evil machines, and one independent member. You have to justify.13 But it was also something we'd never considered a computer could be: fabulously well designed product. I'd give Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge another shot in college. So if one group abandons this territory, there will always be both supply and demand insures that: the more rewarding some kind of spin to put on it.

Notes

The reason Google seemed a lot online. Your mileage may vary.

I may try allowing up to them? I'm just going to create a web-based applications. Incidentally, Google may appear to be promising.

I was genuinely worried that Airbnb, for the same work, the reaction might be an open source project, but hardly any type I. My point is that the valuation should be protected against being mistreated, because they had first claim on the scale that Google does. The company is presumably worth more to most people come to you as employees by buying an additional page to deal with the solutions. Survey by Forrester Research reported in their graphic design.

Unfortunately, making physically nice books will only be a big success or a community, or an electric power grid than without, real estate development, you have to give their associates the title partner, including that Florence was then the richest and most pharmaceutical startups the second wave extends applications across the web have sucked—new things start to be able to invest in it.

Don't even take a long time? It should be protected against such tricks, you'd get ten times as much income. But the usual way of doing that even this can give an inaccurate picture.

To a woman who, because at one point a competitor added a feature to their situation. The French Laundry in Napa Valley.

We try to make programs easy to get into the star it was spontaneous. Statistical Spam Filter Works for Me. You can just start from the revenue-collecting half of it in action, go talk to an audience of investors. A lot of problems, but that's a pyramid scheme.

If you want to trick a pointy-haired boss into letting him play. I wonder if they don't want to impress are not the type of proficiency test any apprentice might have to tell them about your conversations with potential earnings. This has, like good scientists, motivated less by financial rewards than by selling them overpriced components. For example, it's because of some logical reason e.

But I think the usual way of doing that even this can give an inaccurate picture.

Some genuinely aren't. Acquirers can be useful here, since they're an existing investor, the better, because the ordering system, which I removed a pair of metaphors that made them register. A Plan for Spam.

But filtering out 95% of the most important section. The real danger is that the investments that failed, and also what we'd call random facts, like most of the 2003 season was 4.

How to Make Wealth when I first met him, but since it was worth about 125 to 150 drachmae. I read comments on really bad sites I can imagine cases where you get a false positive, this is not so much the better.

You should be especially conservative in this they're perfect.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #valuation #machines #development #investments #way #motives

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coopdigitalnewsletter · 4 years

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3 August 2020: Remote work: reply later. Amazon: free London grocery delivery. Tech industry: regulation?

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter - it looks at what's happening in the internet/digital world and how it's relevant to the Co-op, to retail businesses, and most importantly to people, communities and society. Thank you for reading - send ideas and feedback to @rod on Twitter. Please tell a friend about it!

Remote work: reply later

Many organisations have been “working from home” for a few months now, and there are obvious advantages and disadvantages to being remote. You don’t need to spend time or money commuting, you can work the way you want, etc. On the other hand, you might be trying to care for and homeschool children while also working, which is exhausting and impossible.

One of the non-obvious disadvantages of remote work is that if you try faithfully replicate the experience of being in an office there are additional cognitive costs. Doing a Zoom meeting is slightly harder work than doing a meeting face to face because many of the social cues that help make a conversation happen are lost in the “Can you hear me/I think Marina dropped out/I didn’t catch that” dance. So after a tough day of back to back meetings on the Zoom grid, you are finished.

Here’s an article that argues that remote workers are more productive than their present-in-the-office counterparts, and that asynchronous communication is the reason. If people send messages and avoiding demanding an instant response, recipients have freedom to fit replying into all of their other work. So there are fewer interruptions (related: Basecamp - how we communicate). You can see that even if messages are happening more slowly, more work will probably get done.

But it is also obvious that making remote work work isn’t easy. Nor is it the right answer for every situation. This is the negative argument: Our remote work future is going to suck: “remote work makes you vulnerable to outsourcing, reduces your job to a metric, creates frustrating change-averse bureaucracies, and stifles your career growth”. So there’s work to do to make sure that remote work doesn’t end up like that!

Amazon: free grocery delivery in London

Amazon takes on supermarkets with free food delivery. Same or next-day delivery will now be free for Prime subscribers in London on orders above £40. Amazon says “members will get fast grocery delivery - free with their Prime membership - starting today [28 July] in London and expanding to millions of members across the UK before the end of the year”.

Last week the newsletter looked at how grocery delivery services that fully or part-subsidise delivery suffer significant margin erosion. So bundling delivery free into another service is a big move. This might be a classic “land and expand” plan. The free delivery is a loss leader to win Amazon customers who will later be loathe to switch supplier once they’ve committed. (And Amazon has the cashflow machine to outlast others.)

Another way to look at it: Amazon is just following shopper behaviour: people want convenience, and recently they’ve got used to groceries being delivered (also everyone now lives in a world where “popping to the shops” involves queues and having to wear masks and worry about getting ill, so a push of free delivery works fits with that).

Or Amazon sees it in terms of the ecosystem. Shoppers would like free delivery, so Amazon adds it to Prime, and Prime gets slightly harder to cancel, even though its annual cost keeps nudging up. This approach only works if Amazon are consistently good at working out what shoppers value. If they make a mistake, Prime starts looking like a bad deal and cancellations will grow. But if it works, Prime is the recurring membership fee that eventually looks like essential life infrastructure.

Last week: the shop inside the self-scan bleeper.

Queues and retail news

Sainsbury's tests virtual queuing system. Shoppers will be able to join the queue from a remote location, such as their car, using a smartphone app, avoiding the need to stand outside the shop. Previously on queues: Could online supermarket queues do good? and Managing queues inside and outside Co-op stores during the pandemic.

Good list of local, independent retailers in the US, many of them co-operatives.

The Book of Dreams closes: Argos is going to stop printing its massive catalogue. “Many declared childhood had been "ruined" by the news and decrying that children will never know the joys of circling potential birthday and Christmas gifts.” (The Book of Dreams has its own website, which is worth a visit.)

Tech industry: regulation?

Last week the Big Tech company leaders got hauled into the US congress’s Zoom chat to talk about whether they’re too big and whether the US gov should use anti-trust action to break them up. Here’s a summary.

Traditionally US competition law has seen monopolies in terms of price fixing - they’d ask if consumers are getting fair prices. On that basis, companies like Amazon usually don’t look anti-competitive because they generally force prices down.

However you’d think that regulation is on its way for a couple of reasons. First, market power now comes from controlling demand rather than supply. So the traditional price-fixing measure of monopoly damage may not be sufficient - and academic thinking on monopoly power is now evolving. Second, if you step back from anti-competition law specifically, regulation looks inevitable as the tech industry becomes ever larger and subsumes other industries, remaking them with software and data. It’s natural that the technology industry should face more regulation to limit its harms to consumers, other companies and wider society, its negative externalities, its unexpected consequences:

“Some time between 1850 and 1900 or so the industrial world worked out that regulating industry is necessary, and since then we’ve been arguing about how and how much, industry by industry, from industrial food to banking to airlines. Now that gets applied to tech.”

Related: I tried to live without the tech giants. it was impossible.

Uber’s algorithm and other mobility

Uber drivers to launch legal bid to uncover app's algorithm - this is interesting. if you work for an algorithm (the algorithm tasks you, and determines how much money you make) then it is deeply in your interest to understand how it works.

Also Uber: the company has cancelled plans to provide digital wallets and other financial services. They’ve committed to being profitable soon, and (thanks partly to the virus) the corporate emphasis is on Uber Eats.

Elsewhere in mobility data… the county of Devon will use data from running app Strava to prioritise popular cycling roads for repairs. And some global data on electric scooter rideshare use (nb electric scooters became legal in UK in July).

Co-op Digital news and events

The Federation House team is running weekly drop-in chats for the community every Wednesday at 10am: Join us here. See our online events. You can also see how The Federation is planning for a safe return to the co-working floor.

Other free of charge events

Andy’s Man Club – Gentleman's Peer to Peer Mental Health Meet Up – Mondays 7pm

Self Care – Online Workshops – Various dates/times in July

Northern Azure User Group – Meet Up – 5 Aug – 6pm

Virtual Data Expedition – Online Workshop – 11 Aug – 10am. “Do you wish you had more confidence with data? Do you want to use data to better inform what you do? Whatever your data skills, wherever you are, you're invited to join a Virtual Data Expedition being led online for the first time by Open Data Manchester, with the support of charity data experts 360Giving. A Data Expedition is a way of working with data from 'start to finish' – from identifying a question you have, to finding and using data to try to answer it, to telling a story with it. Sign up to join a series of guided workshops on a journey of data discovery.”

NW Drupal User Group – Meet Up – 11 Aug – 7pm

Beginners Guide to Retrofit – Webinar – 12 Aug – 6pm

Women in Tech – Networking – 13 Aug – 8.30am

LGBTQIA – Hackathon – 28-30 Aug

Paid for events

Invisible Cities - Online Tours of Manchester or Edinburgh – Various Dates & Times

Mandala Yoga – Online Yoga Sessions - Various Dates & Times

Tech Ethics – Meet Up – Various Dates & Times

Thank you for reading

Thank you, beloved readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend! If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog. Previous newsletters.

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growinstablog · 4 years

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The Ultimate 2020 Instagram Idea List: 80+ Tips for Effectively Marketing Your Brand

With its 500+ million active users, Instagram is the world’s second-biggest social network. This is a remarkable achievement considering the app is exclusive to mobile phone users.

Even more remarkable than this is the vast number of brands marketing on Instagram. From socialites like Dan Bilzerian and Kim Kardashian to corporations like Mercedes and Warner Bros, just about everyone is now tapping into this network to grow their business.

Case in point: as of 2016, 48.8% of all brands were already on Instagram. In 2017, this number is expected to reach 70.7%. Marketers are talking with their money, and they’re saying that Instagram is an essential part of the marketing mix (And a major reason for Facebook’s increased revenue!)

The question is, how can you use this growing platform as an effective marketing tool?

We found that there’s no single answer, but rather a long list of things you can do to succeed on Instagram. In this post, we’ll be sharing 80+ of them with you.

Our Ultimate Instagram Ideas List

After reading through this comprehensive list you should be ready to take your Instagram account to the next level! So let’s get started.

Setting Your Account Up For Success

Your account is the basecamp for your marketing operations. It’s where you engage your audience and convert users to take action. If it sucks, it doesn’t matter how great you are at everything else – you won’t get anywhere.

That’s why these next 10 points are so important, starting with #1 – which is to…

1. Make an Official Business Account

An official business account means you get a little blue “verified” badge and a “contact” button that allows users to message you directly.

This is a simple way to increase credibility and authority with users without paying anything. Instagram makes it dead easy to sign up with detailed instructions available here, and the direct-message function is helpful for customer service, too.

2. Use a Relevant, Memorable Name

Your screen name is the first thing people see – and the first place you can deploy effective marketing messages. This means you should avoid names like “RockerGuy99” or “ElephantZeppelin”.

Instead, find an Instagram name that matches your brand, matches your other social media accounts, and is easy to remember.

Take Fortune Magazine for example, getting @fortune would have been ideal however it wasn’t available so they chose @fortunemag.

And you may need to do the same if you can’t get the name you want, take us here at Gleam for example. @gleam isn’t available so we might need to go for something like:

@gleamapp

@gleamio

@gleamcompetitions

@teamgleam

@usegleam

@getgleam

And speaking of your other social media accounts…

3. Cross-Promote Accounts in Your Bio

Did you know that 56%+ of all adults use multiple social media platforms? It’s surprising, but true – and it means that you can engage your users much more effectively by reaching out to them across a multitude of platforms.

All you need to do is drop social media links in your Instagram bio. Highly engaged users will want to view more of your content and click through, allowing you to further promote your brand and increase audience engagement.

A great example of cross-promotion comes from Gretta Rose, who uses her Instagram bio to promote her Snapchat account as well as several of her businesses.

4. Use Your Bio to Grow Your Email List and Drive Sales

Your bio can also be used to house links to your website’s landing page, and with Gleam’s Capture app you can create personalized and targeted opt-in forms to add visitors to your email list and drive sales.

This is an outstanding way to convert your Instagram audience into email subscribers and customers by using valuable discounts to drive action.

Given that Instagram won’t allow you to share links in image caption, including links in your bio is incredibly valuable, it’s the only clickable link on your entire Instagram.

You can also share links to any current promotions or contests via your bio, but we’ll talk more about that later.

5. Connect to Facebook

95% of all Instagram users are also on Facebook. Connecting your accounts on the two networks allows you to take advantage of this through cross-platform promotions, enhanced targeting with the Facebook tracking pixel and the ability to cross-post or share at the click of a button.

This can be especially useful when you want to quickly add a successful Instagram post onto your Facebook Business page.

6. Make an Instagram Tab on Your Facebook Page

You’ve linked Instagram to Facebook – now do the same in reverse. It’s a free way to cross-promote via different platforms, so why not?

All you need to do to create an Instagram tab is to use our Gallery app. It provides a beautiful way to show off your Instagram images and videos inside Facebook.

Here’s an example of the end result for Victoria’s Secret, you can’t even tell it’s a 3rd party app:

7. Tell People About Your Page

Now that you’ve setup your page and have some nice posts up there it’s time to start promoting yourself.

If you have an existing audience the best way to approach this is by using existing social accounts, email lists and personal contacts.

8. Invite Friends From Facebook / Contacts

Ask your informal acquaintances if they’d like to follow your page. Don’t be pushy, and don’t assume that people owe you anything, but who knows? If people like you personally, there’s a good chance they’ll enjoy your content!

The best way to get this started is within the Instagram app itself, you can import your phone contacts (and follow them all), import your Facebook contacts or direct message users about your page.

9. Keep an Eye On Your Competition

If your competition is successfully engaging with their audience it can be worth checking out what they’re doing to get an idea of what your audience is looking for.

You have a whole range of ways you can do this:

Create a separate Instagram account and follow all your competitors

Use a tool like Keyhole to see which posts from competitors perform the best

Your competitors might not be who you think they are, look at popular posts on specific #hashtags

Being aware of how your competitors post, engage with fans and launch promotions is something worth adding to your weekly checklist – it can provide inspiration and insight beyond your own plans.

10. Create an Instagram-Specific Strategy

Something we often see is people posting random content to Instagram. This is a mistake that’s indicative of not understanding what you’re Instagram page is trying to achieve. What you want to have is a clear call to action, consistency in marketing messages, and a single vision for your images. This will help you engage users, maintain a consistent position in their minds and ultimately drive growth.

Once you’re done with all of the above steps you can move on to figuring out…

Hashtags

Adults don’t get them. Millennials can’t live without them. (Most) marketers still don’t use them effectively.

We’re talking about hashtags, of course!

These short words and phrases can make or break a marketing message’s success – and in the next few minutes you’ll learn how to use them correctly. Step #1 is to…

11. Create and Use Branded Hashtags

Creating a brand hashtag makes it easy for users to find your marketing messages – and for you to find people talking about you. These tags are also convenient for tagging contest submissions, customer service questions and much more.

For example, take a look at this MercedesAMG post with several brand hashtags, including #Mercedes and #MercedesAMG

12. Research Relevant Hashtags

Outside of your brand hashtags, you want to use whatever’s hot and relevant in your niche. See which hashtags are popular with brands like yours using the ‘discover’ function, then add them to your own captions.

A good way to do this is to search the Instagram web interface for a more general tag like #travel.

Then start drilling down into the top posts for the #hashtags they use and compile a list.

13. Use Daily #hashtags

You can easily use some #hashtag that relate to days of the week in order to keep your posting on Instagram consistent.

Try these:

Monday: #monday, #mondays, #mondaymorning, #mondaymotivation, #mondayblues, #mancrushmonday, #musicmonday

Tuesday: #tuesday, #tiptuesday, #takemebacktuesday, #tunesday, #transformationtuesday

Wednesday: #wednesday, #humpday, #wednesdayworkout, #woofwednesday

Thursday: #thursday, #throwbackthursday, #thursdaythoughts

Friday: #friday, #followfriday, #ff, #fridaynight, #afterworkdrinks

Saturday: #saturday, #weekend, #saturdaynight

Sunday: #sunday, #weekend, #sundayfunday, #selfiesunday

14. Take Up Trending Hashtags

If you see that a hashtag’s trending, use it to get free exposure from thousands (or tens of thousands) of users. Just be sure to keep it relevant and avoid spamming; nobody likes that.

GoPro found away to take advantage of #NationalPetDay while it was trending and they were met with hundreds of thousands of views. The power of trending hashtags is undeniable, so don’t be afraid to put them to work for your brand.

A trick that some people use here is go back and comment on their own post with extra #hashtags.

15. Use Evergreen Hashtags

Over time, you’ll notice that some hashtags work for you consistently. These are evergreen hashtags and they’re all but guaranteed to put your images in front of your target audience. Make sure to track and deploy them regularly.

Student Flights Australia found that #neverstoptravelling consistently garnered the attention of their target market, so they began using the hashtag with great regularity.

16. Track Branded Hashtag Use

Last year the #YourTaxis hashtag was created to promote the Victorian cab industry in Australia. However everyone ended up using it to share their bad experiences with Taxis.

We mentioned this in passing above, but a recent trend is for people to address organizations via social media. As many as 67% of all consumers have done so in the past – so you want to stay on top of things by following your own brand hashtag and making sure you…

17. Respond to Hashtags

A mere 2% of all brands respond to social media messages consistently. You don’t want to be one of the unresponsive brands because it’s basically wasting a P.R. opportunity as well as burning out a lead due to inactivity.

Nature Box have managed to build a rapport with their customers by staying on top of branded hashtag use and responding to users who have mentioned them, even if it’s just to say something as simple as “enjoy”.

Now that you know how you’ll be using hashtags, it’s time to move on to Instagram’s core function…

Pictures

Instagram is limited in what you can do text-wise – but in terms of visuals the world’s your oyster. Since a person remembers 65% of the information they see, compared to only 10% of what they hear, the visual component of your content is critical.

Here’s how you can do it right.

18. Think First, Post Later

Once something’s on the internet, it’s there forever. Always make sure to double (or triple) check anything you’re posting. You don’t want a single snafu undoing the great marketing work you’re doing.

19. Contextual (In Use) Images

Showing products in use is a great way to educate users and visually advertise the benefits of what you sell. It’s a strategy commonly used by sports brands, but it is really applicable for any brand.

20. Industry-Relevant Books and Publications

Letting people know you’re up to date with current events and information boosts your authority and credibility. It may seem a little cheesy – but it’s working for Tai Lopez in his garage 😉

21. Post High Quality Photos

Grainy, blurry, low-res, or over and under-filtered photos have no place in the digital era.

Yes, some people feel that overexposed photos hide skin problems or that soft images look “mysterious” But from a marketing perspective, nothing’s going to beat high quality, so just keep things simple (and awesome).

If you need any proof about the power of high quality photos look no further than this awe-inspiring photo from Murad Osmann.

22. A.B.D. = Always Be Deleting (Bad Photos)

Once in a while, you’ll slip up and post a photo that doesn’t do well or perhaps the description didn’t do it justice.

When this happens, give it a grace period of 7-14 days, then delete it. There’s no reason to have ineffective marketing messages hanging around.

23. Re-Use Images / Marketing Messages

Odds are, Instagram isn’t the only place you’re marketing – so why not re-use materials from ads and other social networks? It’s free, it saves time and it’s something you can do instantly with apps like Buffer.

Victoria’s Secret re-use the same images across different social platforms. When you re-use images you should try using different messages. This is a good way to see which message works better, and keep things fresh for users who follow you across multiple channels.

24. Create and Maintain Consistent Guidelines

Having guidelines for what you post is a major part of maintaining consistency. Create rules for what can and can’t be posted; this will help you build a consistent visual experience for your users.

This visual consistency will increase brand recognition and aid in the development of a consistent and dependable brand image.

25. Create Memes/In-Jokes

Memes don’t always have to be humorous. They simply have to be shareable, consistent and and – if possible – simple enough for fans to riff on. Just be careful with this one, as you don’t want to come across as pandering to a younger audience.

For excellent meme use, check anything related to Twitch.tv #kappa

26. Share Behind-the-Scenes Content

Behind-the-scenes content, whether it be a picture or a video, is a bonus for your loyal followers. It’s free, it’s fun, and it builds rapport between your team and your audience – so if you’re not doing it yet, consider getting started in the very near future!

27. Post Quotes

You may not always have the time to create fresh visual content. When that happens, quotes that are relevant to your industry or audience provide a reliable, time-tested way to pique users’ curiosity and drive engagement. (Statistics and interesting facts work too).

Consider sharing quotes which embody the essence of your brand, much like Flyte Socks have done with this quote that conveys their stylish and expressive brand personality.

Foundr grew their Instagram account to 110k followers in just 6 months with this strategy alone.

28. Remix Old Content

Got old visual content? Then “remix” it by using a filter, adding a new caption, discussing it or using a video application like Boomerang. This way, you get “fresh content” without having to make any.

Here’s Apple remixing Drake’s album cover for one of their posts:

29. Use Photo Editor Apps

Apps like Apple’s native Camera Roll and the iOS/Android VSCO make it easy to improve photo quality above and beyond Instagram’s native filters. Use them to get a small but noticeable advantage against the competition.

One of my favourites at the moment is called Prism, it allows you to turn regular photos into artwork.

30. Make a Collage

Collages allow you to deliver multiple messages, show a timeline of events and generally engage your audience.

You can easily make collages with awesome tools like Canva’s free online collage maker. It allows you to easily create and customise your own collages from designer templates and download them to any device with a few simple clicks.

If you need some collage inspiration just take a look at how YouTube sensation Zoella used a collage to highlight an array of products while personally interacting with her audience.

31. Hide Something In Your Photos

Gareth Pon hides a small rocket in every one of his Instagram photos, it provides a fun way for his followers to engage with all his posts.

32. Maintain a Story

Remember ‘Follow Me’ – the series of photographs where a girl leads her photographer boyfriend through a variety of exotic locations? It’s a great example of powerful visual storytelling – and its creator, Murad Osmann, built a long-term brand off the strength of his story. The story itself has since become a genre unto itself.

Take a page from Osmann’s book and tell a story with your images. Users will love you for it.

33. Post a Carousel

Instagram has recently added a feature that allows you to group up to 10 photos or videos together in a single post. Much like a collage, these image carousels, or albums, allow you to group together related images, and they also serve as an excellent way to tell a story with your photos.

An early adopter of this feature is SkinnyMe Tea, who have taken full advantage of Instagram Carousels by using the feature to share recipe ideas, customer success stories and also show giveaway prizes.

34. Create a Mosaic

Some more creative accounts like @thesocialkat have turned all of their photos into a mosaic that spans multiple rows of images.

35. Everyday Moments/Updates

Got a minute while you’re standing in line, commuting via public transport or taking a break? Take a photo and voila, you’ve got free marketing content that will allow you to connect with your audience on a more personal level.

36. Include People In Your Photos

Instagram is a personal service in the sense that people view images alone and through their personal devices, personal smartphones and personal computers. As a result, people prefer to engage with photos that feature people – so make sure you use them often.

37. Tag People In Your Photos

Tag potential customers, work partners and influencers. This will show your channel to their followers in the ‘tagged photos’ section and (potentially) get you a co-sign from someone important in your industry.

Here’s Ethan from h3h3 dropping some knowledge bombs with Tai Lopez:

38. Throwbacks

Sometimes old images don’t need to be remixed. Everyone loves a little nostalgia. Take advantage of this by keep an album of old photos related to your industry, then posting them on Instagram when you’re out of ideas.

39. Announcements

Instagram may feel like the ‘wrong’ platform for announcements. Having said that, people will pay attention to the captions and image text you post. This makes Instagram a viable platform for making announcements, which is a terrific way to get free promotion when you have something to say.

You can use Instagram to announce anything from product launches, organisational changes, or, like Starbucks, the addition of almond milk.

40. Ask Questions

Ask a question in the photo itself, or in comments below, and watch user responses roll in. Asking questions is an effective way to gain free promotion or conduct marketing research with your user base whilst allowing your audience to be actively involved in your brand activity.

There are many ways you can use questions to help the development of your brand. You can simply use them to engage your audience and promote discussion, or you can ask a question that will encourage tagging and spread your message. The NBA’s Instagram page has taken to asking their audience for game predictions in posts which incite discussion and captivate fans.

In addition to generating discussion and encouraging sharing, questions can also be used to…

41. Ask Users for Feedback

Social media isn’t just a great place to answer questions – it’s also the easiest way to connect directly with your audience. All you need to do is ask them for feedback and they’ll tell you how you can improve your product and marketing going forward. This is also an excellent way to make your audience feel more invested in your brand.

For an excellent example of asking users for feedback look no further than Loot Crate. They have asked for user feedback as a means of generating ideas for future products and engaging their audience in the process.

42. Post Fan-Made Content

Collecting and sharing content produced by your fans is an outstanding way to post quality content without having to make it yourself. This type of post is a great way to engage and interact with your audience, and content can be easily collected by running contests, offering a reward, or even just asking.

Contiki excels in this regard as they constantly use #contiki to collect and share customer travel photos.

43. Client Feedback

Studies have found that 84% of users trust an online reference as much as a real-life friend’s. Take advantage of this by sharing snaps of positive feedback from buyers via your feed.

SkinnyMe Tea uses this tactic effectivly, as can be seen by this post which shares a glowing review from a satisfied customer.

44. Client Success

Another way to capitalize on feel-good client stories is by sharing photos of them. Here’s an example of Kayla Itsines doing it with a collage:

45. Stimulate Desire

If you can stimulate a desire or pain point your audience has they will feel more inclined to engage with your marketing messages (or make a sale instantly). Case in point: try looking at this delicious photo and not thinking about food and/or your current body shape:

46. Make Current Events-Themed Pictures

On holidays and around important events (e.g. presidential elections), people always look for thematic content. Provide it and remember to attach appropriate tags to get oodles of free views.

Here’s how BirchBox did it:

47. Show Advanced Examples

Realistically, most people will never be able to replicate advanced/expert results. Still, images like this one are perfect for showing people what they might achieve – and they make for great eye candy:

Okay, so that’s that for effective marketing with photos. Now, let’s look at videos: a media type that Instagram’s focusing on particularly hard now that Vine’s dead.

Videos

Facebook – Instagram’s owner – is big on videos right now. As a result, they recently upped Instagram’s video length limit to 60 seconds; a 400% increase from the old 15 seconds. This means you can do stuff like…

48. Incite Curiosity

The product below is a little odd – but try watching this (slightly mysterious) video and not feeling curious enough to read the caption!

49. Explainer Videos

If your potential customers don’t know what your offer is, they won’t buy from you. Use Instagram’s new 1-minute limit to show people exactly what you do with videos that explain or show what your product does.

Lush Cosmetics frequently post explainer videos, like this one detailing how to use their solid hair conditioners:

50. Partner Up

Partnering up with another brand allows you to tap into their audience (and vice versa). As a result, making a video that features you and another Instagram user (as well as the appropriate hashtags) is always a savvy move.

An example of this came when Lululemon teamed up with LoveYourBrain, a group devoted to using yoga as a means of helping those who have been affected by traumatic brain injuries. This partnership lead to the two parties producing videos together which were shared around both of their Instagram pages, giving each page additional exposure.

51. Have Fun

Positive emotions are far more shareable than negative ones. Take advantage of this by creating fun, positive videos – like this one from Oreo.

52. Run Ads / Promo Materials

With the longer time limit, Instagram is now a place to run more traditional ads, too. Just remember that Instagram is still a social place, so try to post ads that focus on entertaining your audience rather than just trying to sell to them. Check out this B.A.-Nicole Scherzinger crossover to see what we mean:

53. Use Boomerang, MSQRD, etc

Apps like Boomerang and MSQRD allow you to add creativity to your videos, increasing their visual appeal. Use them to spruce up old content or make new recordings.

Boomerang has been adopted by some of the worlds most popular Instagram users such as Kim Kardashian West, and it’s time you got on board as well.

Just remember – images and videos are important, but you’ve also got captions to work with!

Captions

Now that you’ve got the images and videos down pat, let’s take a look at how you can turn the blurbs that accompany your content into quality marketing material.

54. Use Geo-Tags

Adding geo-locations makes you easier to find for people in your area. It has the possibility of trending for that location or attracting the attention of others browsing photos nearby.

Use this guide to learn how to add Instagram Locations for your business.

55. Add Calls to Action

If you don’t tell people what you want them to do, they’ll likely do nothing. Add a mix of subtle and explicit CTAs to maximize conversions – same as you would with other marketing channels.

Nature Box incorporates calls to action into many of their captions by encouraging users to visit their website to find out more about their range of products.

You can combine this strategy with Number 4 to rapidly grow your email list and convert Instagram users to email subscribers.

56. Speak to Your Audience

Always be on the lookout for comments that may engage users. Ask questions, make provocative statements, preach; anything and everything you think your followers might enjoy. Airbnb excel at captioning their posts with questions to prompt discussion, as can be seen by this post:

57. Hashtag in Comments

#hashtags count even if you add them in comments. A strategy that we see often is users posting an image with a description, then they comment on their own photo with up to ~20 #hashtags.

By now you should be full of ideas for your photos, videos and captions, but we still need to talk about one of the best weapons in your Instagram arsenal…

Contests

Instagram contests are an outstanding way of gaining brand awareness, growing your following and actively engaging your market.

The ease with which content can be created and shared with the help of geotags and username tags make Instagram a wonderful contest platform, so be sure to remember these next five points when crafting your Instagram contest strategy.

58. Announce Your Contest

No matter what type of Instagram contest you decide to run, if you don’t properly announce it, chances are it won’t take off. Make sure you share a captivating post announcing the contest. Showing people the available prizes is a great way to entice entry, and don’t forget to let people know how they can enter the contest.

If you’re running a contest on your website as opposed to Instagram, remember to include a link to the contest in your bio, as Instagram won’t allow you to share a link in a caption.

A terrific example of announcing a contest comes once again from SkinnyMe Tea, who used a photo carousel to announce a contest, highlight the prizes, and refer people to their bio where a Gleam link to the contest was provided.

With this strategy they maximise their exposure on Instagram then further grow their reach via the contest app (after the user leaves Instagram).

Now that you have some ideas on how to announce a contest, let’s take a look at some of the different types of contests you have at your disposal.

59. Double Tap to Enter

Double tap (or like) to enter contests simply require users to like an image to enter. This type of contest is well suited for newcomers, as they are easy to administer and have low barriers to entry which will help maximise participation.

60. Comment to Enter

Comment to enter contests are another fairly basic form of contest that require users to comment on a post to enter. Much like double tap to enter contests, comment to enter contests have low barriers to entry which will increase involvement, however, comment-based contests have the added advantage of being able to make participants think about your brand or even get others involved through tagging.

For a little bit of inspiration just take a look at this Wet Shave Club contest which gets users to think about the brand and it’s products, and for an added bonus, the post also encourages entrants to spread the message to friends.

You can easily track entries and pick winners for your Instagram comment contests with Gleam’s powerful import actions.

You can even limit the comments you accept to those which contain designated #hashtags or words. This is a great way to ensure that contest entrants are following your guidelines.

Learn More About Running Instagram Comment Contests

61. UGC (User Generated Content) Contests

Another type of contest to consider running is a UGC contest. This will involve getting users to submit photos tagged with a specific hashtag for a chance to win. These contests will not only engage your users, but also spread your message and supply you with ample user generated content to share.

Starbucks has consistently excelled at crafting content contests, with notable examples being their Red Cup and White Cup contests. The Red Cup Contest required contestants to post a photo involving one of their red Christmas cups adorned with a #redcupcontest, with winners chosen based on creative merit.

Starbucks’ White Cup Contest was a very similar campaign, with the key difference being the White Cup Contest specifically focused on the decoration of cups.

With Gleam’s Competitions app you can easily use our powerful import actions to automatically collect entries from users who post use a designated #hashtag or @mention you in their posts. You can even store their submissions to use in your own marketing material.

62. Landing Page Contests

One other type of contest that we’ll talk about here is a landing page contest. These are a little bit different, because while the other contests we’ve discussed localize participation to the Instagram app, these contests require users to leave Instagram. You can run these contests on your own site and use an array of social media platforms to promote and drive their growth.

This outstanding form of contest can be easily run through Gleam. Check out how Slyde Handboards used Gleam + Instagram to propel their brand after their appearance on Shark Tank.

Another excellent example of a landing page contest comes from Beardbrand:

When users followed the link in the bio they would be met with a widget presenting a variety of ways they can enter the contest, similar to this:

These contests are subject to different rules and regulations, you can’t ask users to Follow your profile, comment or like a post. So you should ask for that sort of activity inside the Instagram post first.

The beauty of this type of contest is that in addition to garnering likes, comments and shares on Instagram, you can also ask for email addresses and other actions across other social media platforms which will promote much more widespread growth and engagement.

These are just some of the many ways contests can be used to promote your brand on Instagram, for our comprehensive guide to running Instagram contests click here.

And remember – you should be thinking of ways to market effectively even when you’re not creating and publishing content. Here’s why (and how).

When You’re Not Posting

Something old-school marketers don’t get is that Instagram is a social network. This means your success there is predicated on the actions of other people.

As a result, it pays to make an effort to ingratiate yourself with thought leaders, competitors, partners and followers via the methods below.

63. Like Other People’s Stuff

When you like someone else’s content, they get a notification. That’s why liking photos and following channels is the #1 way to boost Instagram visibility and (eventually) get more followers.

64. Reply To Questions

When people reach out to you, reward them by replying – no matter what they said. Answering user questions is a great way to engage your audience, communicate additional brand information and provide customer service solutions.

65. Delete and Block Trolls

Aggressive and rude people detract from your channel’s value. Block their access as soon as you identify someone who is trying to be consistently destructive.

66. Participate in the Instagram Blog’s Weekend Hashtag Project

Instagram’s Weekend Hashtag project is an opportunity to get massive exposure. Chances of winning are low, but the payoff is worth it. You can find the contest rules here.

Ashley Jennet, who operates a parenting blog called ‘The Stork and the Beanstalk’ as well as an online clothing store entered and won the Weekend Hashtag Project, gaining a tonne of exposure for her brands in the process.

67. Comment on Other People’s Posts

After liking folks’ photos, this is the best way to get their attention. If you want a followback from an influencer or celebrity, make sure to leave constructive comments on their stuff.

68. Follow Suggested Users

Instagram’s always suggesting users for you to follow – and many of them are potential fans or influencers.

69. Follow Back Users That Follow You

Following users that follow you doesn’t cost anything and is a nice way to say “thank you”. Just make sure to unfollow any channel that’s consistently irrelevant to you.

70. Follow Accounts That Your Competitors Follow

If your competition’s following someone, they may be a fan, an influencer or someone else you want to know. Keep tabs on what’s happening by following their followers.

71. Follow Accounts That Follow Your Competitors

The above point works both ways. The people following your competitors can be of interest to you. You won’t be able to follow all of them, but doing so selectively will deliver results.

72. Instagram Channel Swaps

An Instagram channel swap or “influencer takeover” is a cool way to diversify your marketing content. Here’s an example of BirchBox doing it:

73. Cross-Promote with Influencers

Big brands are paying influencers hundreds of thousands of dollars to market their products. Why not do the same thing on a smaller scale by exchanging smaller sums of money (or favours) for features?

Target employed this strategy by partnering up with Instagram juggernaut Zach King to produce an advertisement which shared Target’s message with King’s enormous following.

74. Know When to Post

A well timed post can be the difference between moderate and huge success. Experiment with different posting times and see what gets you the most engagement.

A great way to figure out what posting times work for you is with the help of an analytic service. Below you can see how Iconosquare, an Instagram analytics tool, can aid you in your search for the best time to post.

75. Know When Not to Post

Posting at certain times can get you ignored (due to timezones) or result in poor performance.

Just think of how the media reacted to Trump’s mid-night tweets. Use common sense, testing and analytic services to figure out what the best times and days are for your content.

At the same time don’t be afraid to test your posts at different times of the day to see what works best for your business.

76. Schedule Future Posts

Even when you’ve figured out when you should be posting, actually being online to do it can be a challenge. Use apps like Buffer and Later to schedule ahead and make sure your content always comes out when you need it to.

Here’s a look at how your post scheduling will look with Buffer:

77. Be Consistent

It’s better to have 1 post each day than sporadic bursts of 5-10 images every other week. Images will drop off the people’s feeds quickly, so as we mentioned in the previous point, schedule regular uploads.

78. Understand Your Audience

If you sell a non-GMO, organic body scrub, many of your customers are likely to be vegan. If you sell a kosher food item, many of your customers might not use the internet on Saturdays. Keep details like these in mind at all times if you want to be an effective marketer.

79. Keep an Eye On What Works For You

Once you’ve gotten into the rhythm of consistently making high quality posts you’ll probably notice that some of your posts engage with your audience much more successfully than others.

Pay attention to the types of content your audience responds best to, and keep this in mind when generating future posts. You don’t want to waste time on images your audience has no interest in.

80. Use Advanced Analytics Services

Analytics services can be a great way to keep on top your Instagram performance. Analytic tools can help you identify what content is working best for different segments of your following, what days and times your posts are most successful, patterns in your growth, and much more.

If you want to get high-powered tools that will greatly support your Instagram marketing efforts, consider trying out a service like Iconosquare, Crowdfire or Simply Measured.

Below you can see a quick example of Iconosquare’s dashboard from Buffer’s account:

Bonus Instagram Tips

81. Display Instagram Photos On Your Website

Remember the Facebook Gallery we showed you earlier? Well you can embed that on your site too, create a curated Instagram feed (or include other sources in there) of your best products.

82. Create Unique #hashtags For Each Product

If you run an E-commerce store you can use #hashtags to show social proof for products. Black Milk generates a unique #hashtag for each product, then shows user generated photos on the product page.

83. Embed Your Photos On Your Website / Blog

You’ve probably noticed the huge amount of Instagram photos embedded in this post. Well you can do that with your own photos, embed them in articles, guides or blog posts to further your reach and get more engagement.

84. Ask Users to Caption a Photo

Want a fun way for users to engage with your brand and your Instagram profile at the same time. Take a funny or interesting photo and ask users to caption it using the #captionthis hashtag.

Take it to the next level by turning it into a competition and giving away some of your products.

85. Target Influencers

Influencers can be a very cost effective way of getting your product in front of a huge audience.

There’s plenty of apps and agencies out there to help you find the right influencers, or you can reach them directly (there’s usually a business email on their Instagram bio).

Check out the engagement on this very simple, yet effective influencer post:

And there you have it! 80+ effective ways to market using Instagram. Now you’ve got all the tools you need to drive traffic, engage users and even convert leads and customers from inside the app. Congratulations!

More Tips to Help You Grow on Instagram

Step by Step Guide to Growing Your Instagram Followers

The Smart Guide to Get More Likes on Instagram Posts

Using Gleam to Run an Instagram Contest

Running a Photo Contest On Instagram

Promoting an Instagram Contest

How To Use User-Generated Content In Your Marketing

How to Create a Location on Instagram

36 Marketing Tips For Your Small Business

How to Use Contests to Generate User Content

5 Months to 110k Followers: The Story of Foundr

The Best Hashtags to Boost Engagement on Instagram

Running Successful Hashtag Campaigns

https://growinsta.xyz/the-ultimate-2020-instagram-idea-list-80-tips-for-effectively-marketing-your-brand/

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doodlewash · 7 years

Text

My name is Mark Garner. I live in Palo Alto, California. My passion for nature, places, and different cultures is at the core of my inspiration and the subject of my work. I am a realist with my brushes.

In 2010 after 25 years of real estate sales I “retired” to pursue my passion – watercolor painting. A big thanks to my wife for supporting us during this time. Because I had been busy raising a family and building a career I literally painted 5 paintings in those 25 years. It came to the place that I could no longer walk into an art gallery, knowing that I should be creating…not necessarily to grace a gallery…just necessarily to use the talent God gave me.

Other than one painting class at San Jose State University in the late 70’s, I am self-taught. That one class though was very important. In it I was introduced to the painting technique that I employ today. I am forever grateful to Professor Brose!

Today I am back in the workforce, so instead of painting 5-6 days a week for 6 hours a day, I paint about 4 days per week with two of those days being 6-8 hours and a couple more days of 2-3 hours.

As you can see I am not a “traditional, transparent” watercolorist. I am an opaque realist, who cares about detail and how those details can excite the viewer. I should mention that during the 5 years that I was unemployed, I created about 50 paintings. My paintings average 60-100 hours each, so I was averaging about one painting per month. Today being that my studio time competes with a 40 hour work week, I am now creating a finished piece in about 6-8 weeks.

So, back to my technique… obviously I work from photos. And fortunately for me and clients, the photos don’t have to be award-winning images. Composition is what’s most important, followed by color. It’s not about reproducing a photo in paint. It’s about creating a piece of art that enriches life, brings back fond memories, encourages an adventure, or simply makes you feel good. Often, I will paint from multiple images, use some artistic license, or if the client wants a particular image that’s what I give them. Friends were interested in seeing my paintings in process, so I created a blog where I post images of my works in progress.

I am an opaque watercolor artist. What does that mean? It means that I use multiple layers of paint, and in some places I include white gouache. When you do that your paint becomes opaque. For a long time, I was embarrassed to admit to painting in an opaque style, because it wasn’t “traditional”. Years ago I had a couple of pieces accepted into an exhibition where I overheard an art teacher tell her student that my paintings weren’t real art, and weren’t worth even creating. I think she preferred transparent! It took me awhile to get past that, but today, who cares? Enjoy “your style”, let ‘er rip, and let the critics suck it.

For me, to get the results I want I work almost exclusively on Arches hot press watercolor board. 20”x30”. I just recently completed a painting “Vernazza” on a 30”x40” board…that was a lot of brush strokes. I thumbtack the board to a wood sub board so that it stays as flat as possible.

I used to paint only with Winsor & Newton Series 7 brushes. Then a few years ago they became hard to get, and so now my brushes of choice are Escoda Reserva Kolinsky. The tips don’t last nearly as long, but they are a lot less expensive so it’s a wash. 90% of my work is accomplished with size 4 brushes down to 000. I lay out skies and large areas with a 2” brush and a number 8 round.

My paint of choice is Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor. My palette is made up of 19 different colors, and none of them are black. When I want deep black I use Payne’s Gray. For me Payne’s Gray has a color richness that is preferable to any black. Oh, and I have done a handful of paintings on Ampersand Aquaboard. There’s an interesting material. Check it out… it’s unique.

So, as I mentioned earlier I have a passion for travel, culture, places, people. These days I only photograph with my cell phone…the image quality is just fine, and I don’t look like Joe tourist. After I return home, I number all the photos I have taken that I think might make for a good painting, and set them aside. I then go back a day or so later and see what image inspires a painting. I then print out that number painting on premium glossy paper and there is my reference material. At times, it might be 2-3 glossy pieces of paper that become my reference. The painting I am involved with now “Stockholm Harbor” is 6 different reference photos.

When it comes to subject matter, landscapes I would say are my favorite. And that’s simply because I love nature. I’ve walked coast to coast across northern England. Last fall I walked with my wife across northern Spain, the 500 mile Camino de Santiago. I’ve walked in Nepal for a month with Everest basecamp as the high point. And through the years I’ve spent many weeks in the high Sierras of California.

Nature is a Spiritual thing for me. It’s there that I get closer to God, get recharged in my daily life, and find the most inspiration for creating. The great thing about nature is, you come across a lot of great stuff. Trees, water, animals, beaches, mountains, clouds (tough to paint), and fellow travelers and pilgrims recharging their own batteries, or simply living their daily lives.

My paintings start with as few pencil lines as I can get away with. I tighten all my paintings up with my brushes and paint. I guess that’s why they take so long. But for me, my joy is in the details. Often I paint using a magnifying glass to make sense of what little detail is hiding in the photo. While I am creating a painting, if I shot the photo, I am enjoying the memory of being there, the excitement I felt. If a client shot the photo I am enjoying what they saw, why this is meaningful to them, and hoping to get there if I haven’t been. I want my work to be a great memorial.

I want to finish with a word of encouragement. I learned a valuable lesson those years ago when I overheard the teacher criticize my work. It was mean and unnecessary. She simply could have said to the student, that’s not my style or my preference.

There’s no right or wrong, good or bad with art! It’s perfectly fine to have preferences, in fact that’s needed. Believe it or not, I’ve never painted plein air. I‘ve never completed a painting in a day, let alone an hour. I envy those of you who can do this.

Yes, I am probably missing out on something, or maybe, for me, I am not. Some would look at my art and say, “loosen up!” I look at some art and I say, ”I don’t get it”,”I don’t understand”. All of this is great! We need all art, everyone’s creativity. We don’t know each other’s stories. And if we did, that would remove some of the mystery, and allow for more acceptance. So, I thank Doodlewash for being a place where watercolor art and artists are appreciated, and known. Keep doing your thing. Create, explore, stay to your course, whatever blesses your life and others. Hey… bring some joy!

Mark Garner Website Blog

#WorldWatercolorMonth GUEST ARTIST: "Committed To Bringing Joy Through Art" by Mark Garner My name is Mark Garner. I live in Palo Alto, California. My passion for nature, places, and different cultures is at the core of my inspiration and the subject of my work.

#aquarelle #artist #California #featured #illustration #painting #realism #studio #watercolor #watercolour #World Watercolor Month

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stellar-0 · 7 years

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Anuchard: devlog ~03 - World Concept

last time i was writing about gameplay and progress, now i’ll be talking about concepts.

Anuchard’s Universe Design

eventhough the name -Anuchard- came from project’s codename, we thought it’s good enough as name of the world.

these two images was my first sketch for the Orchard (the home village). my main reference was Yggdrasil tree, and orchard from Legend of Mana (again). but since floating island is kinda cliche, so the other idea was a deserted island inside a cave (right one).

i intended to put baobabs and statue of owl, but ended up just using the baobab. later on i did some random research on Madagascar and African Tribes for village ideas.

what i would think first myself: “Which older games i had played back then that i find the hometown or basecamp most interesting or homey?” as project main inspiration, Legend of Mana came across first of course, later specifically, Rico mentioned about Chrono Cross’ Arni Village.

above is only a small capture of my Orchard reference map (tips! use PureRef for awesome ref board). that reminds me i have to research and play-through Bastion (as the premise might be close enough).

pls click “Keep reading” to continue! (just had to shorten posts so it doesn’t flood tumblr’s dashboard/ reblogs)

as the island inside a cave accepted as the hometown concept, then i continue to explore and get the feel of it.

this was what i get in my head BEFORE i thought about the story.

if you ask did i design without concluding a background story? NANI?!

actually yes. it sucks tho.

Background Story and Ideas

it’s hard to think or visually concept something when you have no story behind it, especially if the artist, which is MYSELF, has a minus balance on creativity bank account (i do need lot of reading and watching).

so i had to think a simple background story to connect with the gameplay aspect too. well to be honest, i think i’m the less-inspired person in team, but i tried to improve my storywriting skill so... i thought, just do it, and quickly.

then i browsed our GDDs (yes it’s multiple, blame Rico) and the project specifications. most important thing i did consider was: how many dungeons and bosses? then how to connect them with planting and cooking? and how i’m gonna connect it with the boss-feeding mechanic?

as we plan to make 5 dungeons with a boss of each one, i start to think about the relationship between people of Anuchard (including us main character), with the bosses. they’re gonna be the Gods of the Anuchard, the creators and governors. i then refer them as “Guardian”.

then i wrote this (pleasecorrect me for grammar error, i mean it!) :

Anuchard was a vast prosperous floating island inhabited by hundreds of citizen, living peacefully. Protected and guided by five ancient guardians; Green, Gold, Indigo, Red, and Platinum, people never felt any less secure, the place was said to be a true utopia.

Until one day, all the guardians decided to leave the land, without (actually with) notice, the island fell to the surface of an ocean cave, split into fragments of dungeons full of dangerous monsters and traps, connected by mystical force.

at least that settles up the premise or the game introduction.

Green (nature theme), Gold (ancient Egypt elegant theme), Indigo (Moai and sea theme), Red (oriental and hot theme), Platinum (geometric, sacred and checkers theme). the themes will also be used for the dungeon’s visual and level design.

then about the other aspect of gameplay: hometown building and the villager interactions.

i imagined this project’s feel would be somewhat like classic JRPG dungeon crawling like Azure Dreams and Chocobo Dungeon, and other games that has feature to expand their hometown through the storyline or level progression, like Digimon World 1, Suikoden series and Brave Fencer Musashi (kinda?). and later i found out older games like Soul Blazer that uses “retrieve missing villagers or rebuild your city”.

usually the plot would be something like:

Chosen one gets a sacred weapon or role,

Any brave adolescents (usually son of legendary person), trained to go scavenge the dungeon (or tower),

Beat a big threatening things to save their hometown, or your (also chosen one) girl (with healing power).

i could totally use those idea, HAHA!

anyway it’s already so long, so i have to conclude this devlog. next time i’ll be covering about our Main Character!

for closing: and THIS, is what i could pull for concept, after we made some backstory (and research, of course). see the difference?

moral of the story for myself, developing a backstory is necessary for knowing what things i need to explore and research, without them, i would put all random things i like from my unresourceful brain. *sadreactonly*

because no GIF no fun, please have this video instead:

A post shared by stellarNull (@stellar.null) on Jan 3, 2017 at 7:51pm PST

check out other posts about Anuchard! if you like what we’re making, please do reblog or fav!! <3

useful links:

dev hashtag on twitter: #anuchard

twitter: @stellarnull

tumblr blog: @stellar-0

Instagram: @stellar.null

Rico’s twitter: @ricolemba

clea’s twitter: @clealeshlick

my twitter: @lazcht

Ciao!

~ @lazcht

#gamedev #indiedev #indiegamedev #indie game dev #indie game development #devlog #concept art #concept #universe building #game developers #game development #video game #Anuchard #インディーゲーム #インデイ #ゲーム #ゲームデブ

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theliterateape · 5 years

Text

Notes From the Harrison Hills

By Kari Castor

About six miles into my thirty-mile hike, I realize there’s no way I’m going to make it thirty miles this weekend. I’d gotten a late start this morning already, and when I was planning my route, I didn’t reckon on just how challenging this trail would be, nor on the rain and wet. In truth, the original plan was probably always too ambitious, but I’m stubborn as fuck and I like to push myself.

But I’m not going to be able to push myself hard enough to do thirty miles like this, so I take a look at my map and quickly rethink things. I will, I decide, at least make it to the top of Lookout Mountain tonight.

✶

I’d gotten into my basecamp the night before, around nine. It was cold and drizzling rain, and I sat in the car for a while checking in with my partners to let them know I’d arrived and wondering whether I should set up the tent or just cram myself into the tiny backseat of my Fiat to sleep.

I pitched the tent by the light of the car headlights, snuggled into my sleeping bag, and passed out. A few hours later, I woke shivering cold. I wriggled into another layer of clothing while still inside my sleeping bag and went back to sleep. A few hours later, I woke shivering cold again, gave up, and took my sleeping bag to the car.

✶

After a sluggish morning, I’m tromping along a swampy, soggy trail in northern Wisconsin, trying not to get my feet soaked. This does not, I think to myself, appear destined to be my favorite hike. There are frequent roadblocks in the form of downed trees across the trail. I have to climb over or under them (not an easy feat, when you’re carrying twenty-some extra pounds in a rather large pack on your back), or, more often, find a way around them through the underbrush.

I keep my eyes open for a likely-looking branch. When I spot a good straight one, I pluck it up and strip it relatively clean. I like to find a good walking stick for my hikes.

The mosquito presence is very strong. I’ve treated all of my clothes with permethrin, dutifully dousing each item with approximately three ounces of pesticide, as per the manufacturer’s guidelines. It does seem to have some effect — unfortunately, that effect is that the same number of mosquitos that would normally attack my whole body are now primarily focusing their efforts on my only exposed skin: my hands and face. I get bites on the palms of both hands.

✶

In late afternoon, I arrive at a potential lakeside campsite. It’s really nice, and I’m tired, and I wonder if I should stop here, forget about Lookout Mountain, enjoy this breeze off the lake.

I debate this question for a while. The only person who cares that I promised myself I’d get to Lookout Mountain tonight is me. But the only person here making decisions is also me. I eat a snack and rest for about an hour. Then I get up. There are 3.3 miles of trail between me and the peak of Lookout Mountain. If I leave now, I should make it before nightfall.

✶

Lookout Mountain sucks. My guidebook did note that there were several structures built atop it, but failed to provide a true picture of what to expect. In the approaching dusk, I emerge onto one of the highest points in Wisconsin and am greeted by a couple of large industrial buildings, machinery humming softly inside fences. The view features an area where logging activity is ongoing. There’s a dirt road that winds down from this summit and back in the direction from which I’ve just come.

I’m exhausted, the sun is setting, and rain is looming. I’m not glad I pushed on to Lookout Mountain, but I’m here now. So it goes.

I climb inside my sleeping bag just in time to hear the drops start pattering down on my rain fly. I hear some ATVs roar up the road and idle in the space between the buildings, then head back down. I settle in and try to read the book I’ve brought, one of the luxury items I make space for in my pack on these trips, but it’s dull and doesn’t hold my interest, so I give up and let the whirring mechanical noises lull me to sleep. Tomorrow, I think, I’ll trek back to my car and drive it to that beautiful lakeside campsite (which had road access), and stay there for the night.

✶

Around 3 am, I am awake and cold. I revise my plan again — my sleeping bag clearly isn’t up to the weather this weekend, and I’m done waking up cold. I won’t be staying for the third night I’d originally planned. I’ll just wait for daybreak and hike out.

A few chapters more and I’ve given up on the book again. Screw it, I have a headlamp and I can night hike down the road easily enough. I’ve got data up here, so I Google for a map of the ATV trails in the area — it looks like if I keep following this road down, it’ll cross Turtle Lake Road, and I can pick up the hiking trail from there.

✶

It’s still pre-sunrise and I’ve taken what has proven to be a wrong turn off the ATV road. It’s not precisely uncharted territory — the grassy routes I’m following clearly been used by vehicles in the past, though they mostly seem disused now — but I certainly don’t have a useful chart myself, and now that I’m back at lower elevations and off the beaten path, I don’t have any data to search for one. I do have a compass, and I know I need to head west to find both the trail and the road. I do also have a GPS dot on my phone, but my power is low and, while I’ve brought the backup battery, I’ve forgotten the cord, so I need to conserve what I have.

This is the sort of thing you’re not supposed to do — wander around off-trail. I wonder if I’ve made a critical mistake, but I don’t feel particularly alarmed or concerned about the situation I’ve gotten myself into. Does that mean I’m rightly assessing that this is fine? I’m not that far off-trail, I know there are roads and ATV trails that crisscross this whole area, and I know which direction to head. Or is my nonchalance the same kind of unearned confidence that got that Into the Wild idiot killed?

My compass and I head northwest-ish along the branching pathways through the forest. I hear, in the wooded darkness to the left of me, something large grunting and crashing through the trees. For a split second, I am sure it is a bear, and I swing my head in that direction, peering along the beam of my headlamp. Then my rational brain kicks in and tells me that it’s just the darkness and the quiet magnifying the sound of what was probably a badger or skunk or some other non-bear critter.

I reach a fork in the path and neither goes the direction I want to be going. I check my GPS. I’m at the edge of a small lake, and the hiking trail runs just past the other side of it. If I cut around the water’s edge, I’ll be nearly there.

It occurs to me, as I am bushwhacking through the scrub brush, keeping the water in sight on my right, that if I’m going to be eaten by a bear, this will be how it how it happens — surprising some poor ursine denizen of Wisconsin who isn’t expecting to have a human stumble into them when they’re just trying to enjoy the breeze off the lake.

I emerge suddenly onto a dirt road. Dawn breaks. No bears attack.

It takes me another fifteen minutes or so to locate the trail itself, which involves crossing the road and clambering down a steep embankment, but when I find a tree marked with a yellow blaze, I am briefly exultant. I made it. I blazed my own trail.

✶

I live a comfortable life in a Chicago suburb. I work a desk job, and I pay people to clean my toilets for me. I am not a survivalist, though I’m working on becoming a more competent, better-prepared survivor. I’m an academic. I like books and computer games and arcane discussions about minute points of feminist critical theory and my memory foam mattress.

But being out on the trail speaks to something in me that yearns to be a little less domesticated, responds to some distant call of the wild.

✶

I make it back to that lakeside campsite, where I find a couple and a dog preparing to hike onward to Lookout Mountain. We chat for a while, exchange numbers, then I take the access road out. I’ve not had enough sleep for the past two nights, my socks are damp, my feet are blistered, and I’m bone-weary, so I’ve decided I’ll just take the roads back to basecamp, rather than hike back along the trail. I’ve still got hours of trekking ahead of me, but at least it’ll be easier terrain.

The sun is pleasantly warm. The leaves are beginning to turn, and the green forest is peppered with spots of vibrant red and yellow. I realize I’ve left my walking stick back at the lakeside camp, and I hope it may serve someone else well on their own journey.

An old pickup truck pulls up alongside me, and an old man leans out of it. “You want a ride?”

I consider for a moment, then agree that sure, I’d like a ride. I tell him where I’m going. He says he’s given someone else a ride back to the same place earlier this morning. “I’m eighty,” my benefactor tells me cheerily.

“I’m smelly,” I respond.

“We’re out here for a bear,” he says as I clamber in and haul my pack in after me, and I think for a second that maybe that was a bear out there in the woods after all. He asks me about what I’ve been doing. “You go out there and you sleep in the woods?”

“Yep, got my tent in the pack here.” I look around the cab of the truck and see that he has a couple small images of very large-breasted nude women tacked up on the dashboard.

“You’re brave to do that alone,” he says. “Do you carry any protection at all?” It’s the sort of question that could easily feel like a threat, especially from a strange man who’s picked me up the side of the road. I don’t feel threatened, but I wonder briefly if I should, if this is just another indication that I don’t assess threats properly? My standard response to physical danger, for as long as I can remember, has always been on a spectrum between unflappable stoicism and self-assured swagger. My fight-or-flight instinct defaults strongly towards fight.

“I carry a fairly large knife,” I say.

“That’s good.” He pauses for a moment. “Now, you know, bears don’t generally want anything to do with people. Usually they’re just gonna steer clear of you. But, if a bear ever does come after you, chances are it’ll be a big boar. It’ll knock you down, and what you wanna do is… Well, I hate to say it, but you gotta reach down and grab its nuts, and squeeze ‘em, tight as you can.”

“Deal with them just like any other guy, huh,” I say.

He nods. “It works. I know a guy it happened to, saved his life.” He tells me the guy’s name. “I’m not telling you no stories, now, it really works.”

“I believe you,” I assure him. “Thanks. I’ll remember the tip.”

“Course nowadays it’s not just the bears you got to worry about. There’s so many weirdos around, you gotta be careful. Never know who you’re getting involved with.”

I agree, still feeling a little feral, wondering for a moment which of us is the weirdo, and then the conversation turns to other topics — to his daughter, who lives in the Chicago area; to football, which I pretend to care about because sometimes pretending to give a shit about sports is just easier than explaining that I don’t follow my local sports teams; to which woods he hunts in now, and which ones he used to hunt in but now stays out of because his philosophy is “don’t cause any trouble, don’t get in any trouble,” and hunting in those woods would be trouble.

He drops me at my car, and I wish him luck on his bear hunt. He turns his truck around and heads back the way we came. I slip the knife off my belt and Google the nearest Starbucks.

#hiking #camping #backpacking #Wisconsin #Kari's annual Fuck Off Into the Woods trip #bears #bear hunters #Lookout Mountain #Ice Age Trail #Harrison Hills

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dwyguyhikes · 3 years

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Mt. Rainier

Paradise to Camp Muir: 4,788 ft gain in 5:49

Camp Muir to Summit: 4,222 ft gain in 5:50

Final elevation: 14,410 ft

Link: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/washington/mount-rainier-standard-summit-route

Buckle up for this one because it’s going to be a long one.

I was supposed to climb Mt. Rainier last year, but the trip got canceled because of COVID. I knew this was going to be one of my toughest highpoints to check off, and I wanted to use it as an opportunity to learn as much as possible to learn about alpine and glacier traveling. RMI Expeditions offered a 5-day program with multiple days of training, so I knew it was the perfect route for me to go.

I got picked up in Seattle by some other people on the trip, and we made our way to basecamp in Ashford. The first day was just orientation and gear check. I had to rent a few pieces of equipment, but most of the stuff on the list I either had already or was able to borrow from Nick back in Salt Lake. Some interesting gear that I didn’t have any prior experience with were crampons, double leather boots, gaiters, and an ice axe.

We also met our lead guide, Jenny, on the first day. All I can say about Jenny is that she’s a total badass, and I knew that she was going to get us up and down that mountain safely. Our team had 8 climbers not including the guides: Chris, Minia, Jim, Jason, Jamie, Ricky, Eli, and myself.

Once we had all our gear sorted out and learned the best way to stuff it all into a backpack, we broke for the day. I was staying at a campsite only a few miles away, so I headed there to try and rest up for the big days to come. Conveniently, this campsite featured a bird that constantly pecked at the metal roof of the building in the center of the camp as well as a small army of screaming children with their parents’ Trump flags billowing in the wind. Terrific stuff.

Day 2 was a training day. We went to a snowy part near the bottom of the mountain and learned how to walk up and down hills with crampons, self and team arrest with an ice axe, anchor an ice spike, and walk as a team of 4 people. On Rainier, we’d be tethered together for nearly the whole climb. There needs to be 30 ft of rope between each person because that’s how wide the crevasses are on the mountain in case someone falls in. Jamie also shared that she had fallen into a crevasse while trying to climb Mt. Baker, so the dangers of the climb were starting to become more and more apparent.

We also got to meet our second guide, Steve, who used to be a pro hockey player and is missing his two front teeth to prove it. He actually plays now for the Idaho team in the BDHL, which I’m trying to play for in Park City. Small world!

After minimal training I still felt incredibly unprepared, but that didn’t matter because we were climbing anyways. The next day, we met a Paradise parking lot at around 9 am and started our climb! Our goal for that day was to get to Camp Muir, where we’d be staying for our nights on the mountain. It has a bunkhouse for us to sleep in as well as tents for the unvaxxed folks.

The hike up to Camp Muir was a slog and gave us a taste of exactly how difficult this climb would be. Steep hills and slushy snow made for some tough terrain, but it was nothing we couldn’t handle. We all walked in a straight line, with each person kick-stepping into the previous person’s footprints. This meant the last person in line had practically a staircase for all the steep hills. Imagine climbing a 5,000 ft high staircase with a 40 lb backpack on your back, and that’s roughly what our experience was like. Chris ended up falling way behind and Eli pulled something in his leg about 75% of the way up, and it was tough to see team members fall off like that.

I think the worst part was that everything seemed deceptively close. When we caught out first glimpse of Camp Muir, it looked like it was 5 minutes away. Wrong! We still had another hour to go after seeing it. That bit was demoralizing.

Eventually we all made it to Camp Muir and claimed our spots in the bunkhouse. The guides provided hot water for our meals and prepared us for the next day. Based on the weather forecast, our best chance to summit would be the next day. This means waking up at 12:30 am and heading out of camp at 2 am, so we all headed to bed straight after dinner. The elevation and general excitement/anxiety led me to get MAYBE an hour of sleep before the guides came roaring in at 12:30 to wake us up. They said it was pretty normal to not sleep the night before the climb, but that didn’t make me feel any less tired.

Chris and Eli weren’t fit to climb, so we departed as a team of 6 with our guides. With only our headlamps to guide us, all you could really do was keep your head down and look at your feet. We had to conserve energy by rest-stepping into the footprints of the person in front of you. I started out on a rope with Jenny and Minia, and Jenny set us off into the darkness with a nice, slow pace.

We crossed Cowlitz Glacier and then made it to Ingraham Glacier. The scariest part was crossing some pretty narrow bridges over crevasses. I tried not to think about the fact that you couldn’t see the bottom when you looked down them and just focused on putting one foot in front of the other. After crossing the glaciers, we took our first break after about an hour. We put our parkas on to stay warm and tried our best to force food and water down. It’s crazy how hard it is to eat at that elevation. This was also where Minia decided she couldn’t go any further, so one of the guides took her back and we changed up our rope teams. Now we’re down to 5 members.

The next bit was absolutely debilitating. We had to ascend Disappointment Cleaver (cleaver? I barely know her), which was a rocky section full of switchbacks. Normally I feel pretty at-home while scrambling over rocks, but doing it in crampons with full backpacks and no light was terrible. All I tried to do was focus on my breathing and ignore the grating sounds of metal spikes on rocks. I was tied in with Ricky for this part, and I could tell he was having a hard time. After about an hour and half of climbing, we sat down for our second break and had a breathtaking view of the sunrise. That view alone almost made the cleaver worth it, but I can barely put into words how much that part sucked.

Break passed quickly, and before we could start up again Jim decided that he couldn’t go any further. Jenny made the executive decision to call it for Ricky too, so they both tied up with another guide and started heading back down. Now there were only 3 of our original team left: Jason, Jamie, and myself. We all tied in with Jenny and became the J-Line (since, ya know, my middle name is John…)

The next bit I could only describe as a seemingly never-ending staircase. At this elevation, every step becomes a struggle. Our pace is slow but steady, I’d say we’re taking roughly one step every two seconds. Try that out for a quick second to understand just how slow our pace needed to be to be sustainable.

The last leg really took its toll on Jamie who was in the back. I was trying to crack jokes to keep team morale high, but everyone was getting their ass kicked by this crazy mountain. After what felt like an eternity of climbing, we eventually reach the crater at the top of the mountain. The crater is considered the summit, but the true summit was about another 30 minute hike past this point. I was so excited and full of adrenaline that I practically ran toward it. Jamie and Jason stayed behind, content with the crater, so I ended up being the only person of my 8 person team to reach the true summit.

I snapped some pictures up there (and recorded a quick clip for my next Survivor application) before starting to feel light-headed and heading back to the team on the crater. Little did I know that my rushing to the true summit would lead to a truly miserable descent: my trip to the top meant that I didn’t get a break like the rest of the team. As soon as I made it back to the crater, I had about 2 minutes of sitting before it was time to head down. We were in a time crunch because some unusual heat was going to produce bad descent conditions, so we needed to leave before it got too bad. I thought I’d be ok with a super short break, but boy was I wrong.

The heat, the elevation, and the exhaustion proceeded to destroy my body on the descent. My head hurt, my body ached, and I started to get tunnel vision. I had to keep telling myself “the only way off this mountain is down, and you sure as hell can’t afford a copter ride out of here.” I was stumbling all over the place and started getting really scared that things were going to end badly.

Pure grit got me to the first break, where I felt nauseous and could barely eat or drink. I put away as much water as I could, which made me feel only slighter better. Still, the only way off was down, and it was time for Disappointment Cleaver round two.

Downhill rocks with crampons on felt like a living nightmare. I was slipping a ton and I was walking in a daze. It felt like a miracle when we finally made it through and returned to the snow. This came with its own frustrations, as Jason and I kept post-holing waist deep into the snow. I wanted to shout and cry and just lay down every time this happened. My morale never felt lower.

I think one of my favorite things about hiking is just the simplicity of it. All you do is put left foot over right foot over left foot until you make it to your destination. The best I could do was focus on this as we continued our descent to Camp Muir. When we finally rounded the corner and saw it, I nearly wept. I felt terrible: I was out of water, my head was throbbing, my clothes were soaked from sweat, and my feet felt like they were about to fall off. The final steps into camp had me on the brink of collapsing.

I immediately rushed into the bunkhouse to take off my layers and try to hydrate and cool down. I laid in my bunk for a couple hours but didn’t feel any better. I was guzzling water but wasn’t peeing, which had me worried. I felt nauseous and dizzy and couldn’t cool down. Jenny came to check on me, and said that I probably had heat exhaustion, which is crazy to think of when you’re on a mountain covered in snow. She said that all the water I drank was diluting my body, and that my body was probably starved of electrolytes. She made me a quesadilla and brought me a Gatorade as I continued laying in bed.

After trying unsuccessfully to sleep it off, I went outside and proceeded to immediately throw up everything. The liter and a half of water I had drank since we got back came spewing out. The good thing is that this helped with my nausea! I still felt like ass, though. I went back into the bunkhouse and tried to sip the Gatorade and nibble the quesadilla as much as my body would allow me. Luckily, I was able to get a bit of a nap in too. I had gone the last 30 or so hours on only an hour of sleep, and my body was not happy about it.

The nap + Gatorade + quesadilla combo helped me to feel a lot better. It still felt like a struggle to get anything into my body. The rest of the team met with the guides to learn some knots since we had time to kill, but I didn’t have any strength to get out of bed. That was a low moment for me.

Night finally fell and it felt like a miracle that I was able to get some sleep. The wind was howling all night and there was a symphony of snoring coming from the other bunks. I woke up around 4 am and actually felt moderately ok, so I think my body was finally recovering.

I kept sleeping on and off until it got to be about time to go. We packed everything up and it was finally time to get the hell off this mountain. The Camp Muir to Paradise hike was almost enjoyable even. It was all downhill so we kept a good pace, and there were tons of “luge” spots where you could slide down on your ass. That’s my kind of descent.

After about 2 hours, we finally made it to the pavement of the Paradise parking lot, and I wanted to kiss the ground. We headed back to Ashford to return our rental gear and celebrate with our team over some beer and burgers.

Man, what an incredible experience this trip was! I loved how much fun our team was and how knowledgeable the guides were. We all kept each other in good spirits, and I got up and down the mountain (mostly) safely. That’s all I could really ask for. All in all, though, I think I’m ok to not do any more hikes for a little while. Only 48 more highpoints to go!

#hiking #rainier #mt rainer #mt rainer national park #highpointing #summit #snow #glacier #crevasse

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topicprinter · 5 years

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It’s a decision that can make or break a startup: Do you invest in in-house resources to create your product or do you outsource to a third party developer? On the one hand, as a startup, shouldn’t product development be a core competency? On the other, surely it’s better to get to market as quickly as possible and allow the “experts” to help you get there and avoid all the pitfalls of technology development?Both approaches have their pro’s and con’s and the decision is by no means straightforward. The answer depends on a number of business and cultural factors and the type of product you are looking to build. Nevertheless, it’s a decision that needs to be taken early on in a startup’s life and can leave founders in a quandary as to the best approach.At Altar.io we have worked with a number of early-stage businesses — as well as providing product innovation for larger corporates — and we have learned many lessons on how to tackle such a momentous decision. In this article — the first of a series we are publishing on outsourcing and in-house developer selection — we set out a structured approach to help founders decide which approach may be best for their startup.The outsourcing decision treeAs with all major decisions in life, the answer to whether or not to outsource requires you to break a complex question down into simpler steps.Step 1: Is technology part of the core value proposition of the product or is it a vehicle to solve a business need? For most startups there are two possible answers to this, either:Technology is the core proposition; orTechnology is the means being used to solve a business issueIn general, if your business comes under (1) then you are more likely to develop the solution in-house. If it’s (2) then your startup could benefit from outsourced development.For example, consider Loopback, a Node.js framework that enables developers to create dynamic end-to-end REST APIs with little or no coding. Here, technology is pretty much the only proposition so Loopback would come under (1). Contrast this with Airbnb, which enables property owners to monetise their home and enable travellers to have a unique experience in the city they are visiting. Clearly, the key value proposition of AirBnB is for property owners and travellers, meaning the business comes under (2).Generally, businesses that come under (2) and are using technology merely as a way to solve a business issue should consider outsourcing, for reasons we will discuss later.Sometimes the distinction is not so clear. Consider GitHub, the platform for developers to host and review code, manage projects and build software. Whilst technology is the core proposition, the platform itself is there to solve a business issue for developers. This creates a grey area, so we should proceed to the next steps.Step 2: What is your target audience/who are the buying customers?In general, the answer can simply be summarised as either:Our product is aimed at technology specialists/developers; orOur product is aimed at consumers/business customers.Returning to our previous examples, Loopback and GitHub come under (1), whilst Airbnb comes under (2). However, again this can create grey areas that can only be solved by answering one more question.Step 3: Does your product involve a technological “secret sauce” that makes it unique?By this, we mean either the technology itself is proprietary to your startup, or the way it’s being implemented is unique. The two possible answers are:Yes; orNoThis clarifies the GitHub “grey area”. The platform is targeting developers, but neither the underlying technology not its implementation is unique or proprietary, so the answer is (2). The contrasts with Loopback, which would come under (1).So how do I decide what’s right for my business?It’s generally inadvisable to outsource software development when:The business has technology as its core propositionThe end consumer is technology people; andThe technology is either proprietary or unique in its implementationIn any other scenario, a software project can either be built in-house or outsourced (or possibly a combination of the two), depending on your willingness and other circumstances that might affect your business case.Judy Robinett, startup expert and best-selling author of Crack The Funding Code notes “The key decision point is around how quickly you need to get to market and what your financial resources are. Remember, outsourcing has been used by many very successful companies to develop their MVP, such as Slack, which is valued at $3.8bn, Skype which sold to Microsoft for $8.5bn, as well as BaseCamp and Github.”However, outsourcing is not for everyone, and there are cultural factors to consider. Evan Varsamis, CEO at Gadget Flow states “I personally prefer having an in-house team to work on projects instead of hiring a new team/developer for every project. Most freelancers or outsourced teams care about delivering the project, not the best possible version of it but whatever releases the next payment.” He adds “Another issue (with outsourcing) is communication. If you have someone in-house, most probably there is chemistry between you so it’s more efficient to talk about projects and get things done.”In a nutshell: the pro’s and con’s of outsourcingAlexander Jarvis, startup mentor and co-founder of 3 startup “unicorns” usefully summarises the main benefits and challenges around outsourcing versus in-house development:Outsourcing Pro’sTeam: All the tech skills are at hand, and if team members suck, that’s not your problem, the shop needs to find someone else.Quality: If the outsourcer is really good, you get a product that actually works. Project management: Good shops will run a process, and you should typically expect a product on a fixed timeline.Time to market: If you are trying to ship an MVP, they may help you do that faster. If you are burning money, having a product to sell matters.Focus: If you aren’t a developer, you don’t have a clue. If you don’t initially have to deal with tech, you can focus on other aspects of getting set up, like marketing etc.Outsourcing Con’sPrice: They will be more expensive than if you are competent and have access to the right people in-house.Documentation: They might not document things properly, meaning you may eventually end up throwing out the whole codebase and start from scratchCode: Lower quality shops or independent devs may ship crap. Ok, you get going, but you still may have to dump everything eventually.Investors: Do not look favourably on third party work as there is no tech competency in house. You illustrated you can pay people, but not that you can ship anything.In-house Pro’sControl: You have more control over the process.Continuity: Easier for devs to work on code that they built.What are you?: This is the KEY point. If you are a TECH startup you need to be a tech startup. What are you otherwise? It needs to be a core competency.Investors: Prefer this as you have proven you can build a product and so will be more likely to be continually able to improve and adapt it for customers.In-house Con’sHiring: Do you know where to find the devs you need? Most founders don’t have a clue where to start.Firing: If your idea doesn’t work you need to scale down, which is hard.Mess up: If your devs don’t ship, you can’t launch at all. Can be better to have something expensive that works, then something sort of expensive that is pointless and you aren’t learning from customers.Jarvis summarises the decision as: “If you have cash, want to launch fast, and don’t know lots of developers then pay a quality shop to ship. On the other hand, if you have some cash, don’t want to throw out code, and will be fundraising soon then do it yourself!”So should a startup outsource its software development?As we have seen, the decision tree approach helps to clarify whether your startup business should even consider outsourcing development. Minh Q. Tran, Insurtech investor and founder of the AXA Seed Factory usefully summarises the decision as: “Outsource when tech is not key to your business. For example, if you are in crowdfunding, then the key to your success will be getting projects on the platform and getting investors so why not get a white label solution to kickstart your business.” He adds: “It’s different when tech is a barrier to entry to your business. For example, in regtech, you need to build a KYC platform to match EU regulations and this requires very specialist resource that is best deployed in-house.”Nevertheless, even if outsourcing is a potential solution, the decision to do so will depend on a number of business and cultural factors. And if outsourcing is the road you go down, then ensure it’s on the right basis. Paul O’Brien, founder of MediaTech Ventures, and Director for Texas of the global startup incubator Founder Institute provides this useful insight on the matter: “Outsource the job to be done. Not the reason it needs to be done nor the ownership of what needs to be done; outsource the skills and work in the same manner that you’d hire the best resources for any job. The challenge for entrepreneurs, is in appreciating that what is built still needs to be your IP. Outsourcing your software build should not be at the expense of losing your understanding, control, or ownership of what you’re doing.”The choice, as they say, is yours. But whilst there are never any guarantees that the decision you take will be entirely right, by ensuring you take it on an informed basis in terms of business needs, cultural fit, financial resources, etc. will mean you stand a much higher probability of success.Thanks for reading,Paolo

#/r/startups #reddit

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t-baba · 7 years

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Transcript: Ask the UXperts: Efficiently Organise and Utilise Your Research Findings — with Benjamin Humphrey

Efficiently organising research findings so that we can effectively use them to their greatest benefit is often a pain point. Luckily help is at hand, in the form of Benjamin Humphrey.

Benjamin is co-founder of Dovetail, a new product that helps teams understand their customers through analysis of user feedback and qualitative research.

We were lucky to have the opportunity to pick Benjamin’s brain in our Slack channel yesterday. It was one of the busiest sessions we’ve hosted but he managed like a trooper.

If you’re interested in seeing what we discussed, or you want to revisit your own questions, here is a full transcript of the chat.

Transcript

hawk

2018-03-07 23:04

The formal intro:

hawk

2018-03-07 23:04

Benjamin is a co-founder of Dovetail, a new product that helps teams understand their customers through organization and analysis of user feedback and qualitative research. Dovetail is kind of like Google Docs meets Trello, designed specifically for researchers and product managers.

hawk

2018-03-07 23:04

https://dovetailapp.com/

claudia.realegeno

2018-03-07 23:04

Do you find it easier to structure by primarily by participant, by event, or some other method?

hawk

2018-03-07 23:04

Prior to starting Dovetail, Benjamin was a lead designer at Atlassian working on JIRA Agile, the growth team, and Atlassian’s cloud platform. He led design initiatives to bring consistency and modernity to Atlassian’s cloud offerings and was heavily involved in shaping Atlassian’s new design language, “ADG 3”, and their new product Stride.

Benjamin is a multi-disciplinary designer working across research, user experience, interface design, and frontend development.

hawk

2018-03-07 23:05

Thanks heaps for your time today @benjamin – we appreciate it.

hawk

2018-03-07 23:05

Can you give us some history and a brief intro on the topic?

hawk

2018-03-07 23:05

Then we’ll get into questions.

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:05

Hey everyone!

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:05

Thanks for joining :slightly_smiling_face:

krisduran

2018-03-07 23:05

Thank you @benjamin for doing this today and sharing your experience!

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:06

As @hawk mentioned I’m a product designer, ex-Atlassian, and now founder / CEO of a SaaS startup focused on building a great product for teams to manage customer feedback & user research.

taraleeyork

2018-03-07 23:06

Hi everyone

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:06

I’d love to talk about anything to do with research, product design, and generally just building great products since that’s my passion.

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:06

To give you a few ideas for topics: advocating research inside a data-driven organization, the relationship between designers / researchers / PMs, collecting, storing, organizing, and analyzing data, sharing knowledge and getting buy-in with stakeholders, escaping the daily grind and setting long term visions, design / research team org structure, and more.

kaselway

2018-03-07 23:06

Well! There’s 7k people here so it’s a bit of chaos!

hawk

2018-03-07 23:07

Cool. Are you ready for questions?

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:07

Specifically the topic is about research data organization / sharing – but I’m also happy to expand beyond that if you have more general questions for me about design or reseach :slightly_smiling_face:

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:07

@hawk yep!

hawk

2018-03-07 23:07

Ok team, shoot…

hawk

2018-03-07 23:07

From @rachelreveley What can you do when you use various tools to create different deliverables such as Google Slides, Axure, Foundation etc?

maadonna

2018-03-07 23:08

How do you avoid re-researching the same things over and over? i.e. how do you make old research information available to start with, and only researching what you don’t know (I have never seen a team do this well – everyone just seems to re-research)

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:08

Hmm. What do you mean by “what can you do”? As in, how can you consolidate everything into a single deliverable / outcome?

taraleeyork

2018-03-07 23:08

What do you do when a client/employer tells you they don’t have a budget for research?

frankenvision

2018-03-07 23:09

Q: What inspired you to create Dovetail?

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:09

I think one of the problems I’ve seen in research is that there isn’t really a ‘standardised’ set of tools that researchers use. Unlike designers, which have Sketch / Photoshop / InVision emerging as the platform. Researchers still have a really disparate collection of digital and physical tools

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:09

They also tend not to talk to one another

rachelreveley

2018-03-07 23:09

Yes. I find that I end up with lots of very different pieces and have to somehow link them together

rvaelle

2018-03-07 23:10

And tips on being efficient on organizing and analyzing data? Not getting overwhelmed with data.:fearful:

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:10

@rachelreveley Right. I don’t feel like I have a great solution for you, to be honest. I think the variety in process / methods / and tuning the output to the stakeholders means that the number and type of tools you’ll use varies so much between projects

isha

2018-03-07 23:10

Wow – that’s a lot!

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:11

In the past everything tends to end up in a document or slideshow

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:11

which is not ideal, imo

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:11

part of the issue is that the raw data is disconnected from the output

rachelreveley

2018-03-07 23:11

They do. the closest to a solution so far is Basecamp but I’m not a huge fan.

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:12

Until there’s something that can suck in a bunch of data in different formats and let you manipulate that, analyze it, distill it, then spit it out as a great output for stakeholders, I think you’re a bit stuck with what we have today

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:12

At Atlassian we talked a lot about the “IDE” for people

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:12

Using that metaphor of developer IDE’s who have lots of powerful features

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:12

What’s the IDE for designers? PMs? Researchers?

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:13

I don’t think there’s a strong story yet for the latter

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:13

But you can see software emerging for the first two

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:13

Anyway, I’ll move on!

jamie

2018-03-07 23:13

What do you find is the best way to present your findings not only to stakeholders but to team members both in design and tech streams?

danielle

2018-03-07 23:13

What’s IDE?

james.g.jenner

2018-03-07 23:13

IDE = Integrated Development Environment.

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:14

@claudia.realegeno I’m architecting an in-house database to store research findings and struggling with how to incorporate tagging capabilities and account for events where there were multiple attendees. How do you handle these challenges in a world of normalized databases? Do you find it easier to structure by primarily by participant, by event, or some other method?

guido

2018-03-07 23:14

Intentionally Difficult Employees

guido

2018-03-07 23:14

guido

2018-03-07 23:14

well, almost got it

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:14

@claudia.realegeno Your first part of the question might be a bit complicated for me to answer here. But the second part I can have a crack at. I think it really depends whether a) you’re doing a research project, with an end date, or b) you’re embedded in a team and you’re doing ongoing research.

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:15

Also if you’re doing strategic / tactical research

claudia.realegeno

2018-03-07 23:15

ongoing research

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:15

For instance, if you have a specific goal or outcome in mind

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:15

Right

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:15

So, user testing sessions, interviews, etc?

bkesshav

2018-03-07 23:15

Is there any tool that use AI and machine learning to highlight key findings and recommend areas to focus as pain points?

claudia.realegeno

2018-03-07 23:15

sometimes we have a clear measurable goal, sometimes it’s more qualitative

claudia.realegeno

2018-03-07 23:16

We’d like the flexibility for both, and even just grabbing ad-hoc statements

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:16

I think the general idea you want to get to then, with ongoing research, is building up a bit of a library of themes that you’re observing over time, beyond the specific individual events

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:16

At Atlassian, researchers are embedded inside product teams

claudia.realegeno

2018-03-07 23:16

yes, exactly!

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:16

So across a bunch of different methods, they’re forming these patterns / themes over time, and it’s somewhat irregardless of the actual method they used to discover those insights

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:17

Generally they’ll write up some stuff, maybe on a cadence, or perhaps have an ongoing short meeting, to then present the outcome of the events as evidence to support a more macro theme

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:18

So I would say, for ongoing research, you probably want to structure by theme as you go (you won’t start out with themes at the beginning) and then use the specific events as evidence

krisduran

2018-03-07 23:18

Do you have a recommendation on how to present data when talking with stakeholders?

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:18

@maadonna How do you avoid re-researching the same things over and over? i.e. how do you make old research information available to start with, and only researching what you don’t know (I have never seen a team do this well – everyone just seems to re-research)

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:18

Heh

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:18

This is like the biggest struggle that the Atlassian researchers had when I left

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:19

I think everyone struggles with this, especially growing companies where you have new people joining all the time

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:19

IMO the problem comes down to bad tooling for storing research insights

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:19

Too much reliance of “tribal knowledge” of long time employees, who would say something like, “hang on, didn’t we do this a while ago?” but you wouldn’t know that without them jumping in

jamie

2018-03-07 23:20

can you speak a bit about different methods you use to synthesize and document qualitative data

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:20

Part of the challenge is that the type of data you touch with research is so varied that no system handles it all perfectly. One product that works great for storing emails from customers or interview notes might not work for video. Another which is great for video might not work for tweets or survey results.

maadonna

2018-03-07 23:20

I’d be interested in hearing how anyone does this :slightly_smiling_face:

dorothee

2018-03-07 23:20

What do you do when you’re asked to provide a UX budget estimate for an upcoming product release, but you only have a very high-level idea of what the release theme is going to be?

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:21

@maadonna At Atlassian we had some success with organising things into “FAQ” style pages by product

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:21

Where you kind of start with the question and that links off to the research

krisduran

2018-03-07 23:21

Q: Do you find storytelling a key part of presenting data to non-research folks?

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:21

So if you had a question like, fairly generic, “What do people do in their first 5 days of using JIRA?” that might then link to some research on onboarding

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:21

But there are so many problems with this

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:21

It requires constant maintenance

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:21

It gets out of date

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:22

It also requires people to use the same formatting so you can compare apples to apples

krisduran

2018-03-07 23:22

Q: When do you know you’ve got enough data and need to pull back out of the rabbit hole?

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:22

Data repositories are kind of a way to solve it

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:22

But

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:23

The data itself is also quite messy in its original form so the repository ends up being tucked away out of view from stakeholders because it’s a total mess.

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:23

You really need some way to say, “hey, here’s my raw data, and it’s really messy, but I can take excerpts out of that and add them into something that’s more bite-sized and shareable.”

frankenvision

2018-03-07 23:23

Q: What do you do with results of your research when you realized you’ve headed in the wrong direction on a project?

bkesshav

2018-03-07 23:24

Q: Is there any tool that use AI and machine learning to highlight key findings from research and recommend areas to focus as pain points?

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:24

So yeah, I think, in larger companies, it’s a tooling problem. I think it’s probably only really a problem in larger companies anyway, because in a smaller organisation, you’ll have less researchers / designers who probably talk more and can hold more in their heads.

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:24

Heh

benjamin

2018-03-07 23:24