Pazzardous Material Vol 47

The week’s posts on a single page (most recent at the top):

This Is Not America

I came across a tweet recently that featured a great clip from a lady who was asked, in 1977, what she thought about television.

Among the many aspects of this that are obviously and understandably different 42 years on is the fact the lady is allowed by the interviewer to just talk, uninterrupted, for five minutes.

The art of listening at work. Not so common these days.

Here’s an interesting comment and an equally interesting response:

 

Feelin’ Good

Yesterday: I spent about 12 hours finishing off the edits on V2 of the book and incorporating all of them to make V3.

This morning: I sent it off to my friend Suze, great editor that she is, to get her input. Suze really sharpens my work and I value her opinion hugely, even when it hurts (like when she told me – quite rightly – that Naughty By Nature was perhaps not ready for publication).

Now: I’m feelin’ good!

 

Put ‘Em High

One of the very generous contributors to my post on lead generation, and a leading light on the subject of SEO, was Heather Lloyd-Martin, highly respected throughout the world as an authority on writing copy that achieves success in the search engines and converts visitors into subscribers and buyers.

I noticed Heather’s work early having decided to train as a copywriter. It resonated with me and changed how I thought about things. Writing out-and-out sales copy had never felt right to me but I knew I needed to specialise in an area which had both high demand and plenty of opportunities.

Heather’s training course, SEO Copywriting Success, which I bought in early 2009, enabled me to position myself as an SEO copywriter and pick up more work.

Knowing how to conduct keyphrase research, write effective meta tags and transform a low-ranking page into a high-positioned one are skills anyone can learn.

A Change Is Gonna Come

When you next visit a website for the first time, ask yourself: how keen is the publisher of that site to get you back when you’ve seen enough on that particular visit?

Is the site designed to get you back? In other words, is it optimised for conversion?

Conversion means:

  • Turning a casual reader into a subscriber
  • Turning that subscriber into a customer
  • Turning customers into repeat customers
  • Turning repeat customers into fans and advocates who tell their friends, family and colleagues about a product or service

Actually, the first point of conversion usually happens away from the website.

It often happens after you’ve typed something into Google and are staring at a list of search results. One blue link stands out so you click it or tap it. That’s the site’s meta title, and the best ones are brilliantly written.

Or the first conversion could be from an ad you’ve seen on social media.

Conversion is why websites encourage you to sign up for something when you visit. The site’s publisher wants to build a relationship with you, so that they can convert you again and again later, from first-time visitor to repeat customer and fan.

 

Show Business

To get the word out about my book and its core messages, I’ll have to get a lot more strategic and a lot more active on social media.

I realise that to get more dear readers like you, I need to be in the business of frequently showing people what I’m doing and how they can join us.

So the other night, I set up a dedicated Instagram account which will be aligned with a domain name I recently registered. I still need to set up a new webpage, and forward the domain to it, and as soon as I’ve done those things I’ll share the details with you.

 

Shut Up

I’m used to Google’s search box predicting what I might want to type into it, but now Gmail seems to be doing the same.

Why are they trying to finish my sentences when they have no idea what I want to say?

Google now reminds me of this Two Ronnies sketch:

 

Incredible

In attempting to understand where tech’s going, and how we’re educating on the subject, I realise that no one – not even the experts – have a clue about the specifics.

But we do have an idea about its general direction. We know that AI is going to be more widely used, for example.

It’s already used by Netflix and Amazon, for their recommendation engines. It’s used in hospitals to make diagnoses from X-rays better than human doctors can. It’s used in legal contexts to sift through evidence better than paralegals, and it’s used to fly planes (usually called autopilot).

Because tech changes quickly and drastically, it often raises moral questions as well as operational ones. When a self-driving car is going to crash, should we programme it to save the passengers in the car or the people in the queue at the bus stop who’ll be hit if the car reaches them?

So what’s the point of AI if it raises difficult questions and threatens our jobs?

The goal isn’t to make computers to think like us to replace us, it’s to make computers think in ways that we can’t or prefer not to.

When AI drives cars, it doesn’t get road rage. It won’t be thinking about the argument it just had. It won’t be trying to remember to stop at the red light just as it’s trying to remember those things to buy from the supermarket that didn’t make it on to the shopping list. Nor will it wonder who Watford are playing at the weekend.

AI always works without distractions. We don’t.

 

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