A few months ago, I read Seth Godin’s Linchpin, and it was just what I needed. This book truly is a gift and is one of Godin’s best to date. If you’re doing important work (or want to), pick it up and dedicate some time over the next week to read it. I promise that you won’t be disappointed.

The book addresses why we need to be doing important work and what kinds of challenges that we’ll face along the way. As it turns out, evolution, society, and your mind want you to fail. It’s kind of humorous once you’re aware of what your mind does to you when you’re taking risks and really challenging yourself.

Onward with your emotional labor. Let’s change the world together!

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Life is all about showing up.

This statement is true, but it’s only half-true in some situations.

“Showing up” every day is important. Persistence and consistency in pursuing your goals will undoubtedly cause you to accomplish what you set out to do. Being present and intentional no matter where you are makes a difference.

But then I entered real life as I got a little older. Over the past couple years, showing up hasn’t been enough. I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t remember everything that I want and need to do. I can’t accomplish everything that I set out to do if I set my goals in an ad hoc fashion.

You can call this revelation maturity or common sense (how humbling for me to admit). I’m assuming that a lot of people either get this or don’t. I’ve refused to believe that I can’t do everything. I’ve suffered a lot of grief as a result. I’ve been guilty of missing deadlines, dropping promises, and neglecting relationships.

Now I’ve changed my mantra because my life is much more complex than it was at 25 (and I suspect that it will only get more complex as I move forward with some of my goals):

Life is about choosing your priorities and then showing up.

Oh how the subtle details make a difference. With clarity in what I need to show up for, everything becomes quite a bit easier to manage.

I hope that I can detect the difference when I enter the next stage of my life, whatever that may be.

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1. Use plain-speak to describe it.

This extreme probably has the lowest amount of friction. You have a chance to describe the product in the customer’s language. People tend to like hearing things in language that they can understand.

The downside is that you may come across as bland or unoriginal.

2. Make up a mystical brand name that may have little to do with the product itself.

As Seth Godin puts it, you get to own a term that describes your product. Google, Yahoo!, and countless others did this just fine.

The downside is that no one’s going to be typing your brand name into Google if they don’t know who you are. That part will depend even more on your promotional skills if you take this route.

Looking at this through an SEO lens

If you’re brand new and want to reach out to people with less effort, then option #1 is probably the way to go.

Consider this scenario for portal software that I’m working on building. Right now, the project is code-named Administrivia. Kind of catchy in a way but perhaps too much of a mouth full. And the name doesn’t really describe what the software does.

What happens if I keep that name when I release it into the wild?

1. People will tweet about it, calling it Administrivia.
2. People will blog about it, calling it Administrivia.
3. People will link to it, calling it Administrivia.
4. My product will start ranking very well for the term “administrivia” in Google.
5. The buzz will wear down when people move on to the next fad (as they do in the tech world).
6. My product will be stuck with a great ranking for “administrivia.” This could be good or bad depending on how well I can get the word out, but I get no second chances.

Consider step 4. The word “administrivia” has an actual meaning:

administrivia (plural administrivia)

1. Administrative details that must be dealt with in order to do more interesting work.

   Administrivia take up two hours of every day.

   Administrivia takes up two hours of every day.

So people will be typing that word into Google looking for the meaning of the word as well. Wasted traffic from people who aren’t even looking for my product.

A SEO-friendly approach

If I look up a few search words in the AdWords Keyword Tool, I end up finding this interesting set of words:

What I’m building is described by some of these words, like enterprise portal, portal software, and portal system.

So what if I name my product Enterprise Portal?

1. People will tweet about it, calling it Enterprise Portal.
2. People will blog about it, calling it Enterprise Portal.
3. People will link to it, calling it Enterprise Portal.
4. My product’s page will start ranking very well for the term “enterprise portal” in Google.
5. The buzz will wear down when people move on to the next fad (as they do especially in the tech world).
6. My product will be stuck with a great ranking for “enterprise portal.” People will continue to search for this generic phrase, whether they know about my product or not.

The important part here is that the product name assists natural linking behavior. Bloggers and industry analysts are more likely to link to your product with the name of the product as the link text. If your product has a weird name, that’s what you’re going to rank for in Google.

You can fight this by trying to get links with link text that’s different than your product name. But this is an uphill battle. It’s a lot of work getting other sites to link to yours with text that you want. Many SEOs fight this battle day after day, and the smart ones secretly wish this were an easier task.

A compromise: mixing the two

Another way of looking at this: what if I name it Administrivia Enterprise Portal? This is a compromise. I’d venture to guess that linkers will sometimes call it “Administrivia Enterprise Portal,” but I’m guessing that some or most will still refer to it as “Administrivia” alone. Tweets only allow 140 characters, and people tend to be lazy when writing, so they will find shortcuts.

It’s still your choice

Of course, this is all still your choice. Nobody is twisting your arm to brand your product one way or the other.

Sometimes worrying about search rankings and SEO can be quite maddening. But it is another tool in your toolkit. Being found by your customers is important, and many of them turn to Google first. So you may as well squeeze every little bit of value out of your product name that you can.

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Look at these wildly popular bloggers:

• Seth Godin has written many, many books and uses his blog as practice for shaping ideas for new ones.
• Jessica Hagy draws really funny charts and uses her blog as a vehicle for delivering them.
• Hugh MacLeod draws hilarious cartoons and chronicles work challenges while doing it.
• 37signals builds great software and writes books. They challenge the status quo in the software industry.
• Matthew Inman draws beautiful and funny cartoons and shares many of them for free.

What do they all share? They’ve done something. They’ve produced and shipped something of meaning. They share a lot of original thought. They rarely regurgitate others’ work.

So no, blogging is not enough. You need to be building something of meaning. You need to be producing art. Then you work on connecting with others on Twitter and your blog.

Less tweeting, more working.

Eating my own dog food

This post is a reminder to myself about what I’m trying to do. I don’t fit the description that I wrote above. I’m filled with potential, but I haven’t yet shipped. I work on it most every day though. Do you?

John Sumser describes this problem and provides worthwhile solutions to counter it in his post, Networking Is Not Working. SURPRISE! The solutions all involve hard work, which most people are unwilling to do. Instead of spending time working hard on shipping a great idea, people schmooze to feel like they’re getting things done.

I love the statements at the end of his list of solutions. Here they are, cut out:

1. Being known as a net contributor is worth 75,000 fake smiles.
2. Being known for your work is worth 100,000 insincere compliments.
3. Flaking out and not keeping up with your membership is minus 90,000 gold stars.
4. Being knowledgeable is worth 50,000 conversations with feigned interest.
5. Being a good friend is worth all of the money you will ever make.
6. Being relaxed and self-confident is worth 30,000 LinkedIn connections.
7. Being good for your word is worth all of the other elements combined.

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“Artists” can think abstractly and design solutions that really feel good. Customers enjoy using their websites and applications. When you look at how this person’s work is designed under the hood, it often makes sense and feels good as well, though it may not always be “perfect.”

“Robots” obsess over details that often don’t end up mattering to anyone other than themselves. They often worry more about getting something to work than how it’s going to work for the end user. When you look at what this person’s work under the hood, it tends to be over-engineered.

Artists are very hard to control and measure. It’s also harder to keep them happy and interested when they’re in your employ.

Robots are easy to control and measure. They’re happy to check off items in a bug tracker and generally get things working, though their products are often an ugly experience (not always).

A couple of points.

1. The first group is more valuable and rare. It is a challenge to keep artists happy, but you should do everything in your power to do so.
2. There are trade-offs involved with hiring either.

It depends on what you want and need, I suppose.

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But when done properly, I’d argue that SEO can help. It’s not just about making a “semantic” website, a skill that web designers tout way too often. There are some ways that SEO can help with the user experience when done the right way.

1. SEO helps you speak the customer’s language

Don’t you feel more comfortable when someone speaks your language? How much more settling is it to see the phrase you typed into Google appear in the headline of the page that you clicked on? How much more comforting is it when the content answers the exact question that you were asking?

In these times of shorter attention spans, fractions of a second are crucial. Would you rather your customers spend time unpacking your “ME ME ME” jargon or spend that time doing other things with your website? The choice is up to you, and many make the choice to stick with the jargon. (It’s surprising how much of this that you still see. Or maybe it isn’t so surprising.)

2. Customers are looking for you in their time of need

The act of the customer finding you is valuable. It’s empowering. It’s why people love hunting for information, products, and services all on their own in Google.

While social media and other forms of marketing are good at generating demand, there’s something to be said for handing the power over to the customer. It’s not either/or.

3. SEO helps people find what they’re looking for

Of course, this goes south when you’re not actually offering what the searcher is looking for. That’s actually a great way to associate negative feelings with your brand!

You must do your keyword research carefully and make sure that you find that balance between what you offer and what the searcher intends to find. When this is done judiciously, it’s a powerful thing.

Can SEO be found elsewhere?

A lot of good SEO practice can be found in other disciplines. Great product designers can build something that people can’t help but remarking about. Great web designers can make sure to honor accessible design, design great experiences, and coach you on best practices for the Web. Great copywriters and subject matter experts write content that’s worth reading. Great PR professionals can get people talking and linking.

All of this must be encouraged. I’m right on the sidelines cheering on these leaders.

But search marketers can give you that extra bit of insight to help you find opportunities in your marketing strategy. The real risk is in finding someone who is honest and good at it.

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As many fields, products, and services are becoming commoditized, it’s become increasingly important to plan and implement a great customer experience. Much of this involves planning and gauging how your business makes your customer feel. Creating those “wow” moments aligned with your strategy is key.

The role of prototyping in McDonald’s and Apple

Two key examples were explained and demonstrated in E-myth Revisited and Subject to Change: McDonald’s and The Apple Store, respectively. Both stories involve building physical prototypes of each business and refining them until they ran as smoothly and customer-friendly as possible. Steve Jobs had several versions of the Apple Store built in a giant warehouse so that his staff could test several possibilities. And whether you like McDonald’s or not, Roy Kroc worked with a prototype until he could perfect a McDonald’s business that works for franchisers.

Working on prototypes in a professional services environment

The heart of what I want to do is offer a service, and that’s a tad trickier because I don’t have a physical product or storefront to mock up and prototype. Also, offering a professional service in a creative and technical area is messy. Some efficiencies can be factored out into processes and procedures, but those same efforts can stifle innovation if taken too far.

Adaptive Path had a compelling solution to the problem of prototyping services, described in Subject to Change. They draw comics that mock up key touchpoints in the customer experience. These comics show what’s going on in the customer’s head, how the customer interacts with elements like the website and phone, and what’s going on overall in the customer’s “story.”

Balance between prototyping and execution

While this planning is helpful (and I encourage it), sometimes it’s best to jump in too. I plan on jumping in to some ideas and innovating on the fly more this year. I will try my best to plan as much as possible, but it is time for action in addition to planning and setting up all of my GI Joes.

I will be working for an actual customer or two, work with them to refine the service, all on the fly. It’ll be really tough, but if I play my cards right, much of the discovery will only need to be done a couple times.

We must balance planning and execution. Each is important, and each is really hard work. At some level, your execution is also a prototype that always needs to be refined, only if you’re willing to inspect it and improve it.

Working with both requires curiosity, insight, introspection, and creativity. Wish me luck.

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Consider this example for ColdFusion on Wheels. There is a main feed with all site updates:
http://feeds.cfwheels.org/cfwheels

When I burned that feed, I signed up for “cfwheels” as my feed URL.

But if you want to subscribe to the blog only, you can subscribe to this feed:
http://feeds.cfwheels.org/cfwheels/blog

I signed up for “cfwheels/blog” as my feed URL in that case.

And here is the screencasts feed:
http://feeds.cfwheels.org/cfwheels/screencasts

Et cetera, et cetera.

It’s a very nice way to show the user what they’re subscribing to and where the URL resides in the information space.

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You’ll notice that they don’t really explain it. They show the info that you need to know and help you get to the next step, which is gravatar.com. And gravatar.com does a really good job of explaining how it works.

Sometimes the best way to explain something is to not explain at all.

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