Less Everything Blog - Business

Communication Is Hard, Especially When You Don't Communicate

2010-09-09T13:57:00Z

The purpose of communication is understanding. To get as close to mind reading as is possible and comfortable/appropriate. This is true whether you’re communicating with a client, partner, spouse, child, parent, or friend.

Communication methods (worst to best):

SMS:

Great for short exchanges where detail and context are either not important or easily conveyed.
Just need a phone, so can happen very easily.
Impossible to type fast enough to have a deep understanding of complicated subject matter. Like emotions or functional specifications.
Completely asynchronous so ideas/threads get lost and people type over each other.
Since fewer words are used very difficult to know what the other is truly thinking.
Tone and inflection are conveyed via emoticons, very poor.
Very difficult to recover once things get heated or misunderstood.

Instant Message:

Similar to SMS but slightly better.
Faster typing allows the use of more words and so ideas can be more fully expressed.
Notification of when the other is typing makes this less asynchronous, but you still don’t get the message until they’re done typing so async problems can still arise.
Not much better than SMS.

Email:

Not instant, so it slows the pressure to respond and you can give a more thoughtful response.
Slow so not great for highly charged topics.
by the 13th reply, everyone is frustrated.

Phone:

Full duplex so you can interrupt, pause your thought move in the conversation together.
You can hear tone and inflection which goes a long way to understanding and mind reading.
The phone is the standard and so most people are very content and comfortable communicating fairly effectively on it.
Some people hate the phone and can’t really open up on the phone.

Video Chat:

Almost as good as it gets.
Seeing as well as hearing increases mind reading skills.
Makes distance basically irrelevant.

Face to Face:

Slightly better than video chat, I guess it’s just better when you can reach out to the real person in front of you.

Therapists Office:

Or any trained moderator, if your communication skills aren’t great, or the two of you are just speaking different languages, having someone trained who can slow things down and realize when the two of you are using the same word but meaning different things can certainly promote understanding.

The essence of good communication is empathy and a sincere desire to understand. If you’re being misunderstood, or misunderstanding, move up the chain until it starts working. Lastly, it is the speaker’s responsibility to make themselves understood. The listen has no chance of understanding so the speaker must discern when she is being understood or not. A great listen can overcome this, but it is very difficult. If you want to be a better communicator start by being a better listener. Don’t just listen to the words, but also try to figure out the deeper meanings, the motivations of the speaker, her feelings. This will make you a more effective speaker.

Fear (Part 1)

2010-09-08T14:24:00Z

We all feel fear. We all let fear make decisions for us to some extent or another in every aspect of our lives. Fear of starting a project. Fear of finishing a project. Fear of launching. Fear of making a bold (marketing) statement. Fear of success (which is really just a) fear of failure. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of not being loved, admired, respected.

Most of these fears are really a fear of what other people will think. But here’s the kicker: you have no idea what they think. In reality, these fears are a reflection of what you think of yourself. Once you launch you can start getting feedback and figure out what others really think, but until then the fear is 100% you. And even if people laugh, who cares? Does it change who you are? Just try something else. If you let your fear, your opinion of yourself, control you, you will never grow. You will never have the opportunity to change that opinion of yourself. The risk, although scary, really isn’t that great. Make a mistake, it’s only a mistake.

When I’m feeling that fear, I usually take it as a signal to do something, not hide from something. There are real things to be afraid of, but if what you’re afraid of is what others will think, get over it and do it in spite of the fear.

It's Always Easier Looking In.

2010-07-29T15:36:00Z

Everyone is guilty of looking at an app and saying "Wow that would be easy to build". What we don't see are the 1st release, the revisions, the decisions and the steps it took to mature the app to that state. We especially don't see the sacrifice the builders took to create that app, how many hours did they NOT spend playing with their kids while they were building that app. How many long nights did they put in?

It's easy to judge, easy to say someone got lucky and certainly easier to call someone gifted than to follow their lead and put in the sacrifice to build something special. It's much easier to call someone lucky then to bust your ass when the outcome is questionable.

Dan Martell at LessConf3010

2010-07-26T20:50:00Z

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Dan Martell of FlowTown speaks about "Building Lean Startups".

We're putting on a single day workshop for designers and front-end developers that works (or want to work) in rails applications.
Learn more.

Chris Wanstrath of GitHub at LessConf3010

2010-07-19T16:09:00Z

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Chris Wanstrath of GitHub.com speaks about "Lessons learned from growing GitHub.com".

We're putting on a single day workshop for designers and front-end developers that works (or want to work) in rails applications.
Learn more.

What I Learned from Planning LessConf3010

2010-05-25T19:07:00Z

Everything is long tail.

Last year I met Willie Jackson, who lives and works in Atlanta.
Willie Jackson introduced me to Celia Dyer of TechDrawl.com
Celia attended LessConf '09 in Jacksonville Florida.
Celia Dyer said she knew of a great venue in Atlanta, so she put me in touch with Bill Cutts.
Bill Cutts allowed us to use their amazing venue.
LessConf3010 was in Atlanta because of my friendship with Willie Jackson and the relationships he created Celia and then Celia with Bill.

Serendipity is absolutely real, luck is not.

You never know who you're going to meet so treat everyone the same. My Grandfather met my Grandmother when he was selling vacuums door-to-door.

Relationships are more powerful than banner ads.

Your friends will promote you more than any banner ad will. Make friends, be friendly, be genuine.

Being silly is an excepted form of marketing

A conference isn't about the conference

People come to LessConf to meet, learn, talk, social and get inspired. Having great speakers sells tickets and people want to hear great talks but it's the hallway conversations that stick with them and get them to come back.

Great speakers sell first time conference goers.

This second time conference was different but interesting to see the change. It was almost like a high school reunion, attendees were seeing each other again from the 2009 conference. I think once you attend lessconf you'll come back to hang out with your friends again. Great speakers sell first time conference goers the environment and relationships will bring you back.

Don't drink too much at the first night's party.

I will never drink again...

Allan's Interview on Mixergy.com

2010-05-17T10:41:00Z

Last week I was interviewed by Andrew Warner of Mixergy.com, home of the ambitious upstarts and startups.

How The Artsy Fartsy Entrepreneur Behind LessAccounting Is Taking On Quickbooks With Less – with Allan Branch

Even directing a broadway play is about iterations of improvement.

2010-04-07T14:02:00Z

George C. Wolf, a Broadway director says To make a show go from good to very good is very easy. It's a series of bold, smart things you have to do. But to make a show go from very good to brilliant...it's an endless series of details. An endless series of unbelievable details that lift it." You can see him say it at 3:17 in the video.

In app development, get the first, less version out there. Then, guided by user feedback and your own vision start iterating. Add features, take away features and polish. Iterate the features, the interface and the design. Ultimately this is the difference between your app and there app, who has the right features and who has the polish.

LessConf3010, Movie Trailer

2010-04-05T14:00:00Z

LessConf3010 Speaker List

1st Day

Cameron Moll - CameronMoll.com and AuthenticJobs

Chris Wanstrath - founder of GitHub

Saul Colt - Thoora formerly of Freshbooks

Dan Martell - cofounder of FlowTown

David Heinemeier Hansson - 37signals / Basecamp, Highrise

Jason Fried - 37signals / Basecamp, Highrise

2nd Day

Alex Hillman - Indyhall

Peldi Guilizzoni - founder of Balsamiq App

Clay Herbert - Tribeswin

Brand is the aftermath of your actions

2010-03-30T14:19:00Z

Forget your logo, that's not your brand.

There's no longer such thing as branding. You can absolutely have a brand, but no one can perform "branding." For the same reason when you build a house they don't call it "housing," they call it roofing, plumbing, flooring etc. A brand has ingredients, many moving parts, which can consist of the following:

quality of your product or service
the speed you deliver it
the support you give your existing customers
the tone/look/feel of your product and advertising

Your brand is a byproduct of your actions. All these ingredients are equally important as the other. If you have a great support, great speed to deliver and your product is crap then your brand suffers.

And if you think that because you're a service based business this doesn't apply to you? You're wrong, you've got a brand too. How fast do you return emails? How soon do you engaged a potential customer? Do your customers feel like you have their best interest in mind? That's all a part of your brand.

In years past "branding" meant to come up with a logo, business card, letterhead, color guide etc. At that time "branding" was very important, it's what your customers and potential customers would see. But now, we live in dark times, your brand is less about the font on your logo and more about the important things. I know, it's scary to think you can't hire a designer and wham, you're branded. But that doesn't work because building and maintain a brand never stops, it's a constantly changing animal.

There is nothing more vital to your success than your brand. But it's impossible to focus on "branding" you must focus on all the moving pieces, the ingredients of your brand.

Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibrary.tv at LessConf2009

2010-03-29T15:25:00Z

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You have no control

2010-03-08T13:08:00Z

You have no control over where you're born, who your parents are, where they send you to school, how much money they have, the genetic blueprint they give you or the decisions they make over the first years of your life. You have little control over how you look or how "smart" you are or the things you're exposed to while growing up. The only thing you have full control over is how hard you work, how much you put in, how much sweat you give and how many times you smile while doing it.

Having a Hard Time Finishing?

2010-03-01T20:39:00Z

My father always told me that the hardest part of any job is finishing it. Here are somethings you can do to make it easier to finish:

Launch. If you don’t launch, you’ll never finish.
Have a reason to finish. “To make my wife/parent/child proud.” “I’m going to change the world with this.” Keep this reason in mind when the going gets tough.
Don’t do it alone. Have someone that will pick you up and keep you going.
Make something people will fall in love with. And then fall in love with helping them.
Put all your eggs in your own basket. If the the other option is going to work for someone else… Who wants that?
Wear cool shoes. This won’t actually help you finish other than you’ll know you’ll look cool once you do.
Not only will you feel like a failure if you don’t finish, but by definition you will be a failure.
You are awesome! Not finishing is not an option.
Your friends will quickly tire of congratulating and encouraging you on yet another new idea. (They never tire of it if you finish.)
Your mother will love you anyways, but she will love you more if you don’t quit. Yes she will.
You’ll look better at your high school reunion.
You’ll feel better about yourself.
Whatever you do next will be more successful.
Chicks dig quitters. Not.
Would you rather tell the story of how you gave up or that you finished it and gave it everything you had?

Location, Location, Location

2010-02-04T14:34:00Z

Not far from my daughter’s school is a little drive through cafe that makes great coffee. There’s not much else around there, just some small neighborhoods, a veterinarians office and some day care places. The cafe closed down two months ago. As I drove by this morning I heard the voice of the owner saying “If every parent, resident and dog lover stopped in for a cup of coffee then we’ll do great!” And it reminded me how many times I’ve heard “If we only get 1% of the market…”

In today’s world the most important thing when opening a web application is location, location, location. The difference is that location isn’t the url, it’s the niche market you’re going after. Choose wisely.

Derek Sivers speaks at LessConf2009

2010-02-03T14:47:00Z

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