Mindspace

mindspace

Space Research Meets The Metaverse Who isn’t aware of the Martian phenomenon of Life in today's high-tech world? Life on Mars is no longer a fantasy but a distant reality. Humans are all set to colonize other planets through their futuristic technological advances. And with technical wonders like the Metaverse, IoT, Artificial Intelligence, and machine learning, the research scale will only broaden. The Metaverse can dwell with almost all industries and has many benefits for each one. However, the Metaverse has outlawed most technologies in the field of research. With the Metaverse, the education and research sector has upscaled its business by creating simulations that assist experiments. The Metaverse also has given outstanding results in Space and Medical research. One can easily conduct a with the right tech stack. Metaverse Virtual Planet Trip Through immersive experiences, the researchers can conduct experiments with the naked eye and also be a part of them. According to CNBC, this industry will reach around a trillion dollars in 2040, with the launch cost estimations dropping by 95%. Defining The Metaverse The Metaverse is a virtual world created with an advanced tech stack that offers an overall immersive experience to the users. The Metaverse can provide not just an immersive experience through virtual gears but can also be a medium for marketing brands in an innovative way. And with the Metaverse, the Web3 space is leading the race of decentralization. Decentralization, as the word suggests, means removing the control of a third-party monitoring the transactions. The Metaverse falls under the umbrella of the Web3 space and facilitates its cutting-edge technologies. by users in the form of cryptocurrency that can later be converted into real money via exchange wallets. Metaverse platforms accept payments With a lot of technical craze in the current advanced world, the Metaverse is always fresh in the talks. How is Metaverse Opening New Frontiers For Space Researchers? Many of us are already aware of the experiments carried out with VR headsets, where individuals spent days living in mixed reality. This VR headset that serves as a medium to enter the Metaverse can also be a tool for carrying out various space experiments. Not just that, game engines can also help create virtual worlds that will fuel scientific studies by creating digital twins of situations the astronauts face in Space. Now let us understand the scope of Space research education In Metaverse by the following: Creating A Digital Twin A replicates a physical concept using highly technological solutions. A digital twin is created by the data collected by the IoT, where sensors are fit on physical objects and data is collected. For example, when creating a digital twin of a particular aircraft or satellite, the sensors on them record accurate data to make the digital twin as real as possible. digital twin Focusing on Physical Fitness The Metaverse can also effectively monitor the astronauts' mental well-being and physical fitness. The Houston-based Metaverse Development Company, Z3VR, is already in the run to develop a technology that will optimize the astronauts' physical fitness. This will be executed by developing a VR-based game that can portray the long-term biological results of a human body in space. Metaverse runs on the power of Blockchain Technology, with it, the astronauts' biometric data can be analyzed at a larger scale. This Houston-based company will work on making exercises an engaging activity for the astronauts with mobile sensors and other fresh VR Tech. A Medium To Monitor The Mental Well-Being Of The Astronauts During long space missions, it is quite easy for Astronauts to feel detached from the physical world. To deal with this, health professionals are finding ways for how the Metaverse can help. They have come up with a mixed reality experience to create virtual areas that will support the mental well-being of the astronauts. Luckily, many institutions like Simon Fraser University's iSpace Lab, are already using the Metaverse to do so. Many studies, like the SIRIUS International Isolation in 2021, were conducted to simulate an eight-month mission in an isolated space. The Metaverse will surely facilitate the Space Industry to be fully prepared for a Space mission before it launches. Virtual Space Experiments in Metaverse Thousands of experiments are conducted in the International Space Station, ranging from testing drugs to analyzing plant growth. With the correct use of Metaverse in the picture, these experiments can be performed virtually. The virtual tours of planets conducted both in and inside our solar system can easily facilitate in-depth analysis of the wonders of Space. Virtual Tours and Missions: Creating your Own Space-Themed Virtual World The International Space University has recently decided to enter the Metaverse to conduct virtual experiments in Space. ISU will partner with Metavisionaries to create a “Metaship.” This will be used for delivering lectures on interesting topics like the effects of unique space environments on the human body. Space researchers can leverage the Metaverse to create virtual tours of planets to train astronauts under the extreme conditions prevalent in space. With a virtual experience developed by a team of Metaverse developers, research can also be carried out easily, giving people a glimpse of the galaxies beyond our planet Earth. Are you a Space Enthusiast? Launch Your Own Metaverse Space Tour through the right Metaverse Development Company and explore Space from the comfort of your couch. relies on listing private vendors to build spacecraft and other types of equipment. Along with that, NASA also provides Exoplanet Excursions to explore Star Systems like the TRAPPIST-1 Star System. The immersive 7-minute virtual tour will give a 360-degree tour on Youtube. Another virtual tour is the International Space Station, which takes users on an immersive tour of the Space Crew's sleeping quarters and Hygiene Systems. NASA's Commercial Crew program https://youtu.be/SUYuxZSaeH0?list=PLTUZypZ67cdumL1V4yFWlfoxwjb3rDCzb?embedable=true Tech Stack Used In Creating A Space Themed Virtual World Technologies Ruling The Metaverse Let us go through some of the unique technologies that are a part of the Metaverse: Blockchain Technology Blockchain technology is a recent cutting-edge technology that keeps data safe and prevents third-party intervention at all costs. This technology works on storing data on distributed ledges with a backup of a thousand computer systems. This technology keeps user data secured and facilitates peer-to-peer payments in seconds. Cryptocurrency As The Mode of Exchange The Metaverse outlaws fiat modes of payments and works with tokens that hold a certain value in terms of real money and cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies through exchange wallets can revert the payment in fiat money to the user. Cryptocurrencies are a robust solution to ease seamless payments without third-party interference. AI With AI (Artificial Intelligence), it is easier to picture the functioning of the Metaverse. Artificial Intelligence can perceive, synthesize and process information that normally is done by the human mind. With artificial Intelligence, computer systems can easily process a great deal of information in a fraction of a second with great accuracy. VR Virtual reality means creating virtual experiences through digital twins and simulations through VR Headsets. This is where the immersive experience of one actually being completely engulfed in the Metaverse occurs. Through virtual reality, humans have strongly created multiple Metaverses that have the ability to merge the digital and physical worlds and create a mixed world. In this space, the physical world will run parallel with the digital world, enabling users to live multiple lives simultaneously. IoT The Internet of Things will assist users in building, testing, and deploying any sort of customizable IoT application. IoT also involves interconnecting physical things with the environment and living things for ideal and effective data sharing. Simulations Through The Unreal Engine: Using Epic Games to Learn Virtual Reality Software As explained earlier, the concepts of digital twins and simulations replicate real-life situations digitally. The actual usage of the Metaverse in the space industry comes with simulations that are actively used for testing products, processes, and systems. Simulations are made on software applications with advanced computer designs. The models can both be created in a 3D or 2D space with mathematical concepts. The simulations will work by introducing a variety of variables inside the digital space that will assess suitable outcomes. The simulations to conduct virtual experiments in the Metaverse can be deployed by the Unreal Engine to various platforms with the smallest details accurately covered. The Pixel Streaming available in the can easily assist in delivering high-performance activities. The display system inherited by the Unreal Engine can render real-time information at a large scale while displaying that information on big LED screens. Epic Games Unreal Engine The Ideal Martian Metaverse: Benefits Of Metaverse For Space Researchers Reduced costs The Metaverse is a technological gift that offers a variety of benefits, like reduced costs to train personnel in virtual spaces rather than at a physical place. The cost is limited to creating a virtual world and equipment rather than traveling to a place to carry out those operations manually. For training astronauts in a digital zero-gravity vacuum before an actual space mission, costs can be highly reduced through the aid of the Metaverse. Data-Driven Decision Making The decision-making can yield successful results with the application of Metaverse tool sets that can analyze and detect problems before it occurs. Data-driven decision-making will always give better results than manual ones and decrease accidents. Especially when talking about the Space Industry, one slight error can fail the whole mission. This will result in not just the mission failing but also the loss of lives. Optimized Outcomes The key benefit of data-driven decision-making is that it can help researchers optimize the outcomes. Integrating metaverse in the training of astronauts or analyzing a Space Mission helps in a better understanding of the results before anything is done in the physical world. The accuracy of these results is perfect enough to train and alter any required information and optimize the outcomes. Wrapping Up The Metaverse welcomes every possible industry in its realms. With the space industry, the Metaverse can easily open new doors in research that will be efficient enough to yield cost-effective results. The astronauts rely on AR/VR for a variety of tasks already. As we know, even the strongest humans sometimes need a helping hand. And the astronauts are not any different. For them, the helping hands come in the form of other astronauts and, to a large extent, on the Metaverse. With AR/VR, several tasks are carried out in the International Space Station. The current use of  AR by the astronauts through the VR headset, “sidekick,” consists of HD holograms instructing a variety of tasks and showcasing them as 3D objects. Thus the Metaverse has already touched the Space Industry, and with it, the researchers are leveraging data like never before. More information on this project here.

Merging The Galaxies With The Metaverse

There are a lot of one-sided relationships on social media. They have many names: superfans, otakus, and stans. When you intimately know the personality, likes, dislikes, and the entire personal history of a person you’ve never met and never had any one-on-one interaction with, you’re likely in a parasocial relationship. These are the imaginary friends of the social network age. Parasocial relationships are defined by a lopsided perception of connection: one side feels highly connected, while the other might not be aware of the relationship at all. I think I know everything about you, but you don’t even know I exist — and yet, I still feel like you probably know me well. What are Parasocial Relationships? The core principle of a parasocial relationship is that it is created through the belief that when you know a lot about someone else, they’re also prone to know a lot about you. This misguided belief is a consequence of the proliferation of mass media. It started with the printing press. Making books something widely available allowed large groups of people to share in the mind space of an author. If you read the collected works of a writer, you’ll have spent a significant amount of time with their thoughts, integrating them into your own mind. That’s already reason enough to assume that you “could be friends” with them if the opportunity presented itself. It got more publicly visible —quite literally— with television. If you see the same people tell you the news or act in your favorite series and movies, you become so familiar with them that you feel you know them personally. The internet finally pulled the plug and turned the slow trickle of parasocial relationships into a screaming vortex. Twitch streamers, social media influencers, online “personalities,” and educators on YouTube feel like close personal acquaintances. And it has become more and more intense. Back in the day, you would see a famous actor maybe once a week, in an episode of your favorite show. Today, you’re constantly barraged with the lives of entertainers and lifestyle influencers. Some Twitch streamers stream for ten hours every day and have built communities of loyal followers who feel like they’re good pals with their content creator. And that has attracted the researchers. “Knowledge about others reduces one’s sense of anonymity,” said of the University of Chicago and Penn State, respectively. The expectation of symmetry is a common social heuristic because our social ties are usually reciprocated. At least that’s how it used to be before mass media. Anuj Shaw and Michael LaForest In a series of lab experiments, they found that people feel less anonymous and think known strangers understand them better. They even ran a field experiment with the NYPD, acquainting residents in a neighborhood with their local police officers, which resulted in evidence that crime actually went down when the locals believed that law enforcement knew them better on a personal level. According to Shaw and LaForest, “People […] mentally fill in the gaps that make social ties more symmetric than they are.” That means our minds create a connection where it doesn’t exist. We form bonds with others even in their physical absence if we perceive ourselves to be recognized by them in other ways. I personally am in several such parasocial relationships. My imaginary friends accompany me whenever I do the dishes or mow the lawn. Whenever I have a block of time, I grab my headphones, and my friends appear. I’m talking about podcast hosts, of course. We often feel very connected to this particular kind of creator. We listen to them on a regular schedule, like a friend. They’re interested in things we like, and they act predictably because we know them well, like a friend. Any such relationship feels like it turns into a two-way relationship over time. After all, they show up reliably every week. How can we think of them as strangers when they talk directly to us in our headphones — often directly inside our heads? But they are fake intellectual friendships. The fewest of us ever get to have a real conversation with the podcast hosts we cherish so much. Why then do we feel so intimately connected? Asymmetries in relationships are not as apparent as they used to be. Podcast hosts are on our level. They’re not royals who live in another universe, detached from reality. Podcast hosts are just people like us in front of a microphone. They’re as relatable as they get. We follow them on Twitter; they might even follow us back. It feels like they should know just as much about us as we know about them, mainly if there were prior interactions. But of course, they probably don’t even remember our names. And that’s a reality we can’t avoid. But we can prepare for it — both on the giving and the receiving end. Parasocial Relationships and Audience-Builders Audience-builders experience parasocial relationships in more ways than regular social media participants. We all admire someone who never heard of us, so that’s pretty common. But at a certain point, we become the targets of other people’s parasocial endeavors. Let me just share a few examples of how this affects me, with an audience well north of 60.000 Twitter followers. On a daily basis, people slide into my DMs expecting favors because we interacted before. I might have shared their work, replied to a tweet of theirs, or engaged somehow. Usually, this was a while ago, but when I check my metrics for that follower, I see that they have been much more engaged on my content ever since then. For them, that event was the beginning of a new relationship. For me, it was a retweet of something I liked. When they then reach out to me months later, they will have seen me on their feeds every day, liked most of my tweets, and replied to many of them. In their DM, I can often feel that this created some sort of expectation of me. I’ve learned to expect that, and have found ways to calmly let them down if their expectations were inflated. But it does create a cognitive load: if I don’t reply to the request, their benign expectation can quickly turn into an angry outburst. I don’t need those in my DMs, or worse, in the replies to my tweets. So I kindly decline. But sometimes, that’s not enough. I have several “stalkers,” Twitter followers who try to go for 100% engagement by liking everything I post and replying to every Tweet of mine they see. While this behavior usually fizzles out, it can be somewhat disturbing. When someone uses words like “friend” and “bro” unironically and with just a bit too much enthusiasm, it becomes something to manage — and that drains my energy. When Does It Start? So, when does this start to affect you as an audience-builder? You don’t need to have many followers for some to overestimate their relationship with you. It’s just more likely to happen if you have a few thousand followers. The moment you become influential —in any way, not just the selfie-centric Instagram influencer-kind— you will have the attention of all sorts of people, both your ideal followers and those who might get a bit too involved. It also depends on how much you engage with your audience. The more you focus on empowering and celebrating your followers, the more likely it is for someone to take this a bit too far. The Risks of Parasocial Relationships What is too far? There are a few the risks for you and your audience When social ties skew towards a strong asymmetry, the relationship becomes unhealthy — and potentially dangerous for both parties involved. It can be very convenient to feel affiliated with someone: the relationship turns into entertainment. People can just watch their perceived friend do their work and stop doing what they themselves should do. They watch you build in public instead of building their own businesses. It’s like hopping on the couch to watch a nature documentary instead of going on a hike. The curated experience isn’t the same as your own adventure. Faux relationships displace genuine reciprocated relationships and inhibit your own self-discovery. Living vicariously robs people of a whole layer of their existence, and parasocial relationships are the catalyst. Here’s another horror story from the influencer world. Maia Knight is a TikTok “mommy influencer,” — and while there is a lot of controversy around her personal brand, her superfans and haters are equally over-invested in their relationship with the young mother. In what can only be described as a collective manhunt, Maia’s followers , even resorting to digging into birth records and similar detective work — against the will of the influencer. They relentlessly harassed her male followers, trying to discover and reveal private information to the world. tried to find out who the father of her children was That’s an obsession. And it’s extremely destructive, like a spreading wildfire, out of control. How Can This Be Prevented? What can you do to mitigate this? Can this even be avoided? You have one tool at your disposal: your own outward projection. With every interaction, you set the tone of how you relate to your followers. Don’t feed into the fantasy. Don’t act as if you had an intimate relationship. Unless you’ve built a genuine friendship with a person, you’re not a friend. You can be a peer or a colleague, but friendship is earned, not faked. If they overstep, draw clear lines in the sand and call people out — kindly and in private. This won’t hinder your capacity to form normal relationships. While you have to set clear boundaries and be intentional in every single interaction, you can still make friends. Just understand that there are power dynamics at play, and if you have admirers —as wonderful as that is— you’re responsible for not misleading them into thinking you’re a friend. The thing that helped me most with this was learning to say no. I deny almost all requests I get, as I get dozens a day, and most are more an opportunity for the person asking than they are for me. That was hard at first because my mission is to support as many people as possible. But once I understood that draining my time into projects out of pity won’t allow me to impact more people, it became easier. With clear boundaries and honest deflection, you can manage the negative consequences of parasocial relationships. Upsides of Parasocial Relationships But are there any upsides to this? Can these relationships be used for good? The flipside of the voyeuristic tendencies of people living vicariously is that what you do as a creator could turn into modeling: they see you doing something, and they start to see themselves doing that in their future. As the parasocially related person, you are likely a role model. Act like it, and your actions will shape the lives of others. Talk the talk, and walk the walk. The assumption of symmetry also often leads to people establishing trust in you. That’s what audience-building is all about: we seek to attract as many people to follow us, to build some sort of relationship. While it shouldn’t have to become a parasocial one, building a foundation of trustworthiness is in everyone’s interest. With that trust comes the benign side-effect that Shaw and LaForest found in their study. Believing that a well-known stranger might know more about you than they really do can help decrease the negative aspects of anonymity: people act more honestly and are less likely to cheat. That’s a good thing for any community. Your own Parasocial Relationships Finally, let’s do some self-reflection. I talked about the fact that I have several podcast hosts that I consider to be in a parasocial relationship. Or was, until I reached out to them, asking if I could be on their show to have an actual conversation. This is the reason I have three times so far: I took the leap and reached out to Courtland. Now we regularly have actual conversations. appeared on the Indie Hackers podcast Of course, this won’t work for everyone. But if you had asked me a few years ago if I’d ever be on any podcast, I’d have found that ridiculous. The alternative to establishing an actual relationship is admitting the asymmetry and living with it. It may not be as fun as imagining you have a friend, but it will make future interactions less awkward. Take the opportunity to think about this a little. We are all fans of someone, and we admire those who came before us. My bookshelf is filled with people I have incredible respect for. Recently, many of those authors have become peers that I regularly communicate with — bidirectionally, if you wondered. Still, there are others who I think I’ll never talk to. Well, let’s see. And make sure we don’t assume symmetry where none exists.

Parasocial Relationships: A Pervasive Risk

In today’s digital world, consumers are more discerning than ever. Bad user experience, or a product that simply misses the mark, will lead your users to flock to your competitors in a heartbeat. The best way to avoid that nightmare is to focus on your product from the get-go. It’s something we advocate at Altar, and we’re not alone. In recent years, startups have been putting more and more focus on products, showing an as a result. increased demand for product managers While developing a recent content series, I sat down with a number of entrepreneurs to discuss their startups. The Startup Journey, I’ve taken a lot of lessons away from these conversations, and today I want to share seven key takeaways, specifically on the product. 1. Know Where Your Product Is & Where It’s Heading It was with Christian Nothacker that this first lesson came to the forefront of my mind. during a conversation We were discussing his fintech, PrestaCap. His startup focussed on helping small business owners overcome major inefficiencies when in the financing process offered by traditional banks. He heard stories of small business owners queuing at the bank with paper applications and having to wait five days for a response. Banks had fallen asleep at the wheel. So he stepped in, digitalized the process, and built a better solution: “If your product is no good, your clients will eventually go somewhere else. It’s very important to know where the product is today and the direction in which it’s heading. If you don’t know these things, it’s extremely difficult to keep your product relevant and up to date.” It was this focus on product relevance that led to PrestCap being successfully acquired in just five years for $20M. 2. New Products Must Show Immediate Value Our attention spans are getting shorter. that the average attention span of an adult is shorter than a goldfish’s, at around eight seconds. Studies show It’s critical, therefore, that you show your users value as quickly as possible. Something I recently with serial entrepreneur and product expert Joe Procopio. talked about Here’s how he put it: “Your core product has to give the customer a quick understanding of why they need your product. And it has to do this flawlessly. Remember your product won’t work if your customers can’t see any value. As you build your product, focus on providing the most value with the least friction.” In other words, ensure you build features into your product that pique your users’ interest quickly and effectively. And, importantly, communicate it clearly. 3. Keep Things Stupid, Simple, Crystal Clear As a company, when we talk to entrepreneurs about building an MVP of the first iteration of their product, we always begin the process with a simple exercise: Creating an elevator pitch, to sum up, the startup’s value proposition. We do this because the first step in providing users with “the most value with the least friction” comes in the form of sharing your value proposition with them. Something Jan-Philipp Kruip and I . Jan-Philipp founded FitSense, a B2B health and fitness fintech startup that is being used by some of the biggest multinational insurance companies in the world. discussed recently When I asked him for his advice on the product, he told me: “Focus on getting the value proposition incredibly clear. If your grandma doesn’t understand, it’s probably not clear.” Crafting a clear message on what you’re trying to provide takes a lot of time. But it’s very important.” A clear, well-communicated value proposition will help you in a number of ways. Firstly, it will entice your early adopters to use your product. Secondly, if you begin to get lost in a sea of features you’d love to see in your product, your elevator pitch can serve as your north star. If you ever question if a feature will prove useful, you simply need to refer back to your elevator pitch to quickly know if it aligns with your value proposition. That being said, you won’t necessarily nail the value proposition the first time around. You may find you need to pivot to succeed. 4. Be Prepared to Pivot if Needed It was in a with serial entrepreneur Yaron Samid when this particular lesson came to light. discussion He founded BillGuard, a multi-million dollar fintech startup. The first iteration of BillGuard was a “set & forget” security app that identified fraudulent activity on your credit card. And while Yaron and his team received interest for this product, no one seemed to be bothered enough about the problem to take action. More than that, they had issues with their CPA. The solution? They pivoted the product: “Early on, we realized our Cost per Acquisition (CPA) was going to be too high; so we pivoted to a B2B model. We tried to sell the technology to the banks. However, the sales cycle for banks is very, very long. It’s painful. The kind of pain I wouldn’t wish on anybody. Simply, we were not set up to just sit there and wait for the banks to deploy. So, after two years of investing in a B2B marketing and sales team, with pilots in major banks, we made one of the hardest decisions we had to make.  To pivot back to a consumer app. This meant letting go of some amazing talent we had brought in to sell to banks.  They just weren’t the right fit for a consumer business model. It was heartbreaking. We completely redesigned the product and built a personal finance app as opposed to a “set & forget” security app.” It was these pivots that led them to success. That being said, not every successful startup needs to pivot. Take the entrepreneur in the next lesson, for example. 5. Don’t Build For Your Market, Build With Your Market When Illit Geller , TradAir, you can imagine my surprise when she told me she didn’t start the business with a specific idea in mind. told me about her startup Instead of brainstorming ideas, she and her founding team went out into the market and talked directly to an industry they knew very well, asking for their biggest pain points. She told me how it was this tactic that led to the initial success of the product: “It’s important to be out in the market and talk to the actual players to have them as true partners in your product evolution. That’s basically what we did. And, because we developed our fintech product with the market, in partnership with a bank, the initial release of the MVP was spot on.” A good strategy if you ask me. In its most recent funding round, TradAir raised $11M. But it wasn’t just the people she talked to in her chosen space that led to Illit’s success. It was her deep knowledge and experience of the industry she was tackling. This leads me to the sixth lesson on the list. 6. Focus on a Space You Have Experience In There are no two ways about it. Your chances of success are higher if you have some knowledge and experience in the industry you’re going into. Something is a strong advocate of: unicorn founder Alex Tonelli “I can’t emphasize enough for new entrepreneurs the concept of starting halfway there. You ought to be careful when it comes to the products and the problems you dive into. Having authenticity to a problem is paramount. People can get stuck into this religion of Lean Startup and convince themselves they can learn about any problem and build the perfect product to solve it. Simply put, it’s not that you can’t build a successful product in a space you know less about – but it’s going to be a lot tougher.” More than experience in a chosen industry, you should have some knowledge of product theory and reasoning. And if you don’t, you should consider onboarding someone who does. 7. Don’t Underestimate the Importance of a Strong Product Team In the excitement of building a startup, it’s easy to get carried away. Especially when it comes to the features, you build into your product. This can often lead to a snowball effect, where every new exciting idea gets thrown into the development pile to be built as soon as possible. Suddenly, your product is getting bigger, more confusing, and less valuable. A product team can be a great gatekeeper to avoid this headache. In a , serial entrepreneur Garrett Gafke summed up the importance of product people perfectly: recent conversation “A good product person will hear someone from the company say: ‘We need to build this feature for the platform; it’s a must-have!’ And turn around and says things like: ‘Great! Is it deployable across all customers? Is there revenue to be generated from this feature? Does it help to improve the users’ experience?’ It’s really important to lay the foundations of a great product team so you have that point of view. It ensures your product truly serves your users. Remember, nowadays; it’s simply not enough to recognize an inefficiency and build a solution you think people need. You need to be able to show your vision and tell your story so well that people don’t just understand it. They feel it, recognize it and ultimately internalize it.” All of this to say, don’t underestimate the importance of a product team when building your startup. Wrapping Up In today’s business landscape, where a short time-to-market is vital, it can be tempting to jump into the development stage as soon as possible. But there’s no point building quickly if nobody actually wants what you’re building. Instead, take a breath and focus your attention on . structuring your product reasoning Taking the time to do this now will increase your chances of a successful launch in the future. Thanks for reading.

7 Key Product Lessons I Learned Interviewing Successful Entrepreneurs

Most projects in the world of crypto read like an instance of Prestige Worldwide taking themselves entirely too seriously. So, when a link to Non-Fungible Olive Gardens (NFOG) popped up in a local DAO’s Discord chat, the ridiculousness sold me immediately. Everything about the now delisted project is on brand all the way down to the unlimited breadsticks and family-like atmosphere ( ) of the appropriately in-character chat. wyhyf Discord Of course, I minted a breadstick NFT right away before the topic of Olive Garden proceeded to consume my mind space for far longer than I’m comfortable admitting. Was I alone? Since the project dropped on December 17, the has seen over 82 ETH total volume in sales across 880 unique location-based NFTs, over 1.4k breadsticks minted, and a community bootstrapped token ($ ) up close to 200% in the first 24 hours post-airdrop with over on Uniswap Polygon. NFOG collection bstick $100k in TVL And if all of that means nothing to you, just know that pictures of Olive Garden restaurants sold as NFTs multiplied several times over in value along with a literally made-up token called . Why do all of this? Well, the project has to “complete leveraged buyout of Darden Restaurants, Olive Garden’s parent company.” Breadstick stated plans As of this writing, to NFOG. Unless the intention was to catapult NFOG into the collective crypto zeitgeist, I’m calling that a wrong move. Olive Garden has unsurprisingly issued a DMCA You don’t need to to guess that the attention drawn by delisting will only amplify the Non-Fungible Olive Garden movement as the community moves the collection to . The crypto space exists precisely as a response to overreaches of centralized authority. search hard decentralized exchanges Forcing a crypto-delisting is like punting a wasps nest. Now, what follows is not financial advice. I , however, reflect on what this phenomenon can tell us about the increasing importance of community to brands, money as expression, and intellectual property (IP) in the decentralized and immutable world of Web 3.0. will Non-fungible? I would be remiss if I didn’t at least provide a quick blurb on NFTs — please skip ahead if you’re familiar. Without overcomplicating it, if a widget is , it means that it’s unique. So, in the case of the NFOG collection, each NFT can be distinguished from one another. If you own one, we can verify that you own it, and we know it’s authentic because we can see where it came from. We know those things for reasons we won’t get into here, but you can watch the video below, later if you’re interested in a simple visual explanation of NFTs. non-fungible What does it mean? In a world where jpegs demand millions of dollars on the basis of insane future promises yet to be seen, Non-Fungible Olive Gardens stands out as one of the most sincere. How, you ask, can an unofficial NFT project peddling pictures of Olive Garden — itself serving a diluted simulacrum of “authentic” Italian fare — be anything other than a scam? Well, it’s a joke, and the fact that it’s been as wildly successful as it is makes it all the more hilarious. Regardless of your moral leanings on the topic of NFTs, you have to admit that the absurdity of NFOG’s premise, rise, and aims is at least worth a chuckle. That’s an absurdity as Camus would put it — the futility of a search for meaning in a world devoid of it. It’s maddening. But why, what’s the sticking factor? Jokes are funny because they contain a kernel of truth. Wrapped in this dumb little collection is a reflection of the emptiness inherent to our constructs of money, intellectual property, ownership, and presumed rationality as the basis for the actions of our fellow humans. When new technologies bring about new capabilities, old concepts are forced to be reconsidered and our relationships with them evolve. What does money mean when we can make and exchange our own? How does one enforce ownership of intellectual property when the use of it can go unabated? Why in the world did they just spend $800 on a picture of an Olive Garden in Idaho? I don’t have the answers to these questions, but I can put them out there to start a dialogue. Future of NFOG & beyond 👀 There’s no doubt in my mind that NFOG is the start of a new genre of NFTs and memes more broadly. The recent delisting has inspired a brilliant new collection, , and may even catalyze a new decentralized NFT marketplace for that genre. Non-Fungible Takedowns The organic nature from which NFOG community-driven initiatives have arisen introduces whole new dimensions to the experience and expression of memes, a dynamism that creates a sort of glue tying together those in on the joke. It’s a meme you can walk into and participate in. I’ve said, half-kidding, that the title of and classes like Masterpieces of Western Memes will soon go from absurd to matters of course. Chief Meme Officer The ability to wield memetic powers is a skill that pays outsized dividends for those the memes serve. They can catalyze communities — they’re potent delivery mechanisms for rapid communication that spread virally. But, like any form of communication, this skill does not come easily to many brands. Corporations rarely do humor well, often erring on the side of woefully out of an unwillingness to take risks. cheesy So, at the point a “ ” have taken…let’s call it from your branding, monetized pictures of your storefronts in the form of NFTs, amassed a cult-like following of alt-brand ambassadors complete with their own bootstrapped cryptocurrency token ( ), deflected a delisting of the NFT in question, ? community of Olive Garden enthusiasts inspiration $bstick what is (fungible) Olive Garden to do Unsolicited advice to the big OG 🫒 Before we go further, let’s consider the fundamental options for a brand in this position, of which Olive Garden will be the first of many: Ignore it exists Shut it down Embrace it Ignorance The first option is to simply ignore the “problem”. When haters rage against its existence, feign ignorance. When the troves of Olive Garden alt-universe fans tag the business incessantly on Twitter and flood DMs, leave them 'on read' and hope that they would tire themselves out. However, this approach has two main weak points. First, it leaves a giant elephant in the room should the community reach critical mass. The second, though, is more important. That is, there is a ton of value to be had in at least acknowledging the movement, its enthusiasm, and creativity. Whole marketing arms are paid good money to resonate with an audience, why in the world would an organization look the other way when that very audience is doing it better than them? Shut it down As I mentioned earlier, it looks like Darden is trying to shut things down. But let’s be real, the internet is tireless. Try to shut anything down, and you’re signing up for a game of whack-a-mole. There have been numerous instances of attempted . Headlines will write themselves, the value of the NFTs and $bstick surge, and the community continue to grow and evolve only to manifest more formidably. Maybe not immediately, but eventually. censorship that backfired Between mentioning the delisting above and this paragraph, the as well as on NFOG collection is already listed on a decentralized exchange called Zora Rarible Regardless of what law states, a creation takes on a life of its own in the collective consciousness once it’s unleashed. To a sophomore in college, Coca-Cola may mean getting blasted off rum while to you it may mean refreshing picnics in the park. These associations have their own emotional reverberations. Perhaps instead of trying to homogenize through control, brands are better served by learning to influence and let the best expressions arise on their own. It’s in the interest of a brand to ride the waves of evolution, capitalizing on enthusiasm rather than trying to corporatize the brand’s form. Let it be. Let it mean different things to different people. A brand can exist in parts and live on in subcultures far beyond what corporate suits can imagine. Rolling with these changes and embracing the emergent expression of the idea of the brand has the potential to increase the scope of its emotional impact. Good luck trying to cut the head off of this hydra. That’s not a threat, it’s a fact of nature nowadays. Web 3.0 is not your daddy’s internet. Between smart contracts, decentralized storage (IPFS) and exchanges, and , we’ve been collectively ushered into a new way of getting things done together without the need for permission or the fear of censorship. DAOs Who do you take down when there is no leader? Who do you talk to when the website isn’t centrally hosted and the exchange platform lacks control over listings? Embrace it Look, there is no playbook for this. So why not run with it and write it as you go? This is a fandom Tolkien would have dreamed of — a group of individuals who love Olive Garden, bonded by nostalgia and wholesomeness the restaurant represents, and create new forms of expression through memes, material goods, and tokens while having fun doing it. I mean, when was the last time you read something inspired by Olive Garden? : Invite and incentivize collaboration from your community in deciding what you become — . In doing so, you create a group of superfans financially and intellectually invested in the propagation of your brand and product. If you , they will run with your idea for you. echoing this sentiment. The biggest takeaway is this think bottom-up, not top-down give people ownership Here’s a thread No doubt it’s risky to embrace them. It’s like herding cats. But this is where things are headed. Plus, it’s way more fun doing things together. When people are given the tools to communicate as a group, create a unit of value, exchange that value, then incentivized to perform work for the sake of moving the group toward some goal, the sovereignty they reclaim is unassailable. It doesn’t matter whether people are initiated through absurd memes or reading the whitepaper of an obscure cryptocurrency; whether the intention is to buy Olive Garden, , a , or . Once the power of decentralized, permissionless, censorship-resistant collaboration is experienced, there is no going back. Might as well join the party. wyhyf. Blockbuster golf club the Constitution Thanks for reading some of my words to kick off your new year. Let’s connect on , or wherever you are . Twitter online Also published . here

Olive Garden Gets NFOG Delisted And Triggers Streisand Effect: Marketing and PR #Fail

This is why we need an autonomous new internet. Data is boring at the surface. But underneath it is the lifeline of our society. It is the blood connecting all parts of this great organism that is called the Internet. Its oxygen is information, bringing life to our imagination and feeding our hunger for knowledge. Data is the gold for the new technological era. Invest in data, and you will be a rich man. The reason is simple. Everything that can be transformed into zero’s and one’s will become Data. To transport it, store it, move it, calculate it, game it, read it, and so on and so forth. Your refrigerator will soon read its content and order new supplies without you having to bother. The digitalization of our lives is accelerating with A.I, quantum computing, self-driving cars, blockchain technologies, and the Internet of Things all around the corner from mainstream adoption. This brings a fundamental concern and opportunity. Let’s start positive with the enormous opportunity that lies ahead of us for transforming data into something great, something sexy for all of us. Data will be green. Data will be accessible for everybody, and Data will be decentralized. The challenge This sounds like a great movie with a very happy end. Unfortunately, the reality at this moment, standing at the dawn of a true revolution of the usage of data, is different. Data is owned by just a few techno-nationals. Data is sadly not available for billions of people that are left out of our information society. And data is stored in mega data factories owned by those big tech giants and costing a fortune to build. We are in a very crucial and exciting timeframe where technology really can serve us to make a change. It is also a moment in history where we are challenged to make the right choices. Decisions that we can explain to our grandchildren with a light heart and a bright and proud smile on our old faces on a green and healthy planet. Choices that are grounded in ethical and moral consciousness.  From deep care and wisdom. Not  from harmful extraction of data from billions of users by big our tech feudal overlords that put back global harm of screen addiction and mass manipulation of emotion. (talking to you, Mark) Humanity is in the business of making miracles happen, and we shouldn't go for less. These are the miracles needed for the next big data revolution that is already in full throttle. Web 3.0 is aiming at giving data back to us. Technological cloud innovation can make data green and available for the illiterate, for the people in Africa that are left out from the lifeline of our information sharing organism. Green Data Here is the solution for the big Data centers in the world that cost one billion to build, and of which its computers and hard drives end their lifeline already after one year. It’s both simple and easy to realize. Bring Data close to the end-user Is it that simple? Shorten the distance to the sender and receiver, to your telephone and the cloud. Make that cloud hover above your head. Like a thundercloud with continuous lighting connecting the dots. This means practically moving from centralized to the edge. And the beauty is that exactly this movement of innovation is going on in many parts of society, apparently simultaneously. Take organizations, for example. We are most definitely and unstoppable, transforming from hierarchical organizational structures with imposed leadership models to self-managing decentralized teams of 8–12 people at the edge. It is the holistic approach known as Teal organizations. The question becomes more relevant than strategies for the next years, targets to make, the reality that needs to be controlled. “Where does this organization need to move organically” The same with data. What if storage and compute capacity could move freely, where it is most needed? Instead of bits and bytes sent under oceans to data centers far away and back to your mobile phone, data becomes a living organism communicating in flow with its users. This video from demonstrates the new Lamborghini electric car. The energy from wind moving through the car is stored in its body through nanotechnology! Isn't that amazing? The same chassis will turn back in its original shape when a scratch occurs. This technology has . Supercarblondy encapsulated healing agents embedded in the material matrix Yammie, doesn’t that sound sexy Sci-fi? A self-healing car! The same with the data of the future. The new intelligent Lamborghini of data will be self healing. Compare this with a scratch on the hard disk that is recovered organically. Human error has no influence on operational availability, it’s nature itself that correct itself organically. This technology is no comparison to the many workers who need to control, repair, and check flaws and failures in the big data center solution. They will look prehistoric already in a few years’ time. The Green Data of the future consists of those two very important properties. It is close to the end-user, operating at the edge, and it is self-healing—data as a self-operating organic mechanism instead of a regulated means of control. Accessible for all Imagine when all the minds of the people who have no access to education and information would be able to work together and with the connected minds. What would that bring the world? Imagine the creative solutions, Imagine the accelerated mind space. The next Nobel prize winner in physics might come from a small village in India. Some farmer’s kid in Uganda might invent a great medicine for curing aids. We are far from there yet. In remote areas in Africa, electricity is the first need, let alone to speak of a cheap internet connection. Billions of people on the planet have been left out of the revolution of information and banking. The World Wide Web has become the Western World Web. The unbanked and the illiterate are very often the same people. Crypto has the potential to change this. Data has the power to make the connection. Information equals knowledge equals power. Education is key. Even to learn about crypto for example. In Uganda, the scam crypto project ONEcoin made 50.000 victims. Poor farmers that had to scramble to get 1 dollar together sold their houses and livestock to buy a package of ONEcoin. They were promised money and easy life. Again, the most vulnerable and poor were misused in this pyramid scam. Why? Because of the imminent lack of information and education. Education leads to empowerment. An internet connection and affordable data lead to economic inclusion, literacy, and possibilities. Imagine how much we, Western people, would learn from that new influx of knowledge, cultural diversity, and different world views? It would spark a movement towards world unity coming from respect, understanding, and working together. A world where borders fall apart, where trade wars will be something of the past. At the basis is education and free access to a possible new information network for all. This is called WEB3 or the autonomous Internet. It is all part of the movement of decentralization, and many organizations and people are working on this right at this moment. Decentralized servers The cartels of information and data have been controlling who has access and who has not. Gatekeepers and firewalls are cutting the existing internet in pieces and are selling it to the highest bidders. The original dream of a free uncensored Internet for all has capsized on an ocean of money, profit and centralized interest where the big boats of data are steaming ahead towards data supremacy. They are about to hit the iceberg of decentralization and Blockchain technology. The solution for big data centers is a distributed system of mini servers everywhere over the world. Developers, app-builders, storage seekers, and other data consumers will use the servers close to them. Another solution is to tab into unused computer storage and CPU power from consumers and pay them with a native token. Think about innovative organizations becoming more and more neutral, where innovation happens at the edge. This is already happening to the money and will happen with data too. The decentralization of data means we need to consider the coming of the existence of a new autonomous, truly neutral internet not owned by anybody. The people would build it by ‘farming’ capacity, and it would be for the people using that capacity. A free, organic very intelligent, and green marketplace of data. This model could change the current situation in Uganda. People with electricity, an internet connection, and some basic knowledge can start farming this capacity as of today. Usage would be in high demand since capacity is very expensive in poor countries for some shadowy reasons. The revolution of data is threefold; It will be green It will be accessible for all It will be fully decentralized I have been looking around in decentralized Internet land and found a great initiative that didn’t fell for quick ICO money, for hitting an exchange too soon, that has been around for 5 years, slowly and steadily working on a new neutral Internet for all, ticking all of the above boxes. As logic prevails, ThreeFold Network is the name of the new autonomous internet. After building an ecosystem of distributed farmers of data for 2 years and testing the technology, the network is ready. ThreeFold has been the best-kept secret in decentralized dataland. The ThreeFold ecosystem consists of more storage and compute capacity than all other similar projects together. The community has been busy building in the shade. According to ThreeFold, we need a shift of digital consciousness. From APP-centric to human-centric. ThreeFold is in the business of making data sexy again, and they are doing a great job. I love to hear about some more projects from you, dear Reader. Leave them in the comments. Together we make the new Internet—Green, local, self-healing, neutral and accessible for all. Lucien Lecarme Also published . here

The Data Revolution: Green, Accessible, and Fully-Decentralized

I love to build stuff online. The start of almost any project excites me -- the idea, the planning, the initial execution, all of it. The MVP phase of any project is where I’m happiest, but once things shift to the maintenance phase, I’m still interested, but I’m much less excited. That’s where the work begins… In my professional life, this isn’t a problem because the motivations are different, and, well, the work has to get done. But on side projects, the calculus is different. My motivations must be my own, and whether they are fun, learning or money, they have to make any project sufficiently more appealing -- at least for a specific block of time -- than watching on Amazon, mindlessly scrolling Reddit, or doing other things. Wheel of Time Because I like that early, “0 to 1” phase and have a reasonably competent full-stack skillset, I start many projects. Almost all of these are, by their very nature, open-ended. So maybe in one week, I’m working on a . I can almost guarantee that I’ll want to be working on something else next week, providing that the previous project has been released gotten to a stable point. product recall database I’m not alone in questions if one (seriously, just look ). In fact, it’s a pretty popular problem with a subject of creators online (not just developers either, projects can be no-code, or they can be something like a podcast or YouTube channel). can have too many side projects at this list The Problem The issue is that projects never seem to end. They keep incurring costs (hosting, paid APIs, etc.) or making small sums of money, neither of which really bothers me. The issue is really that they keep occupying some mind-space. I feel compelled to make sure they are still running, that the automation is still functional, and to check in on analytics at least a few times a week. Now, this gets draining, plus it might be distracting me from more important things. Solution? I, sadly, have no solution yet. I could… shut down projects, but that seems like a waste sell them, but that’s a hassle and might mean more work or future obligations stop building projects, but that’s boring focus on what I have, also boring I will say that the projects have had a lot of value for me beyond their own worth. I have found that while they do drain me of some percentage of my attention and time, . They are the perfect excuse to learn a new skill, hone a new technique, try out a marketing tactic, or test out a concept on a small scale with the need for meetings, planning, project managers, designers, lawyers, or anything else that corporate projects require. I then take those learnings to work and, sometimes, bring valuable insight to whatever I’m working on. side projects do make me better at my job Sadly I have no answers right now. I’m going to think about this new idea for a few days and see where that project goes. population by country

Side Projects: Yay or Nay?

Yet more code smells? Plenty of! We see several symptoms and situations that make us doubt the quality of our development. Let's look at some possible . solutions Most of these smells are just hints of something that might be wrong. They are not rigid rules. This is part V. Part I can be found , Part II , Part III is , Part IV , and (for now). here here here here part V the last one Let's continue... Code Smell 31 — Accidental Methods on Business Objects Adding persistence, serialization, displaying, importing, exporting code to an object bloats its protocol and brings coupling. Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash Problems Readability Coupling Maintainability Solutions Keep your objects clean. Decouple business objects. Separate accidental concerns: Move Persistence, Formatting, Serialization to special objects. Keep essential protocol using . bijection Examples Persistence Identifiers Serialization Formatting Sample Code Wrong Right Detection It is difficult (but not impossible) to create linting rules based on naming and hinting for suspect names. Exceptions Some frameworks force us to inject dirty code in our objects. (For example identifiers). We should try to use better languages/frameworks. Tags Declarative Conclusion We are very used to see business objects polluted. This is normal. We need to reflect on the consequences and coupling from these designs. Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible. Alan Kay Code Smell 32 — Singletons The most used and (in)famous design pattern in the world is causing us great harm. Photo by Maria Teneva on Unsplash Problems Coupling Testability Accidental implementation problems. Multi threading issues. Static methods polluting. Object creation contract violation. mismatch. Bijection Memory issues. Premature Optimization. Solutions Avoid it. Use contextual unique objects. Benchmark object creation. Examples Database Access Globals Loggers Helpers Sample Code Wrong God is the archetypical singleton example. Right Detection This is a design pattern. We should avoid it by policy. We can add linter rules for patterns like so new developers cannot infect code with this . ‘getInstance()’ anti-pattern Tags Globals Conclusion This is an historical mistake already acknowledged by the community. Nevertheless, lazy developers bring it again and again. We need to reach a consensus on its drawbacks. The Diagram is Not the Model. The model is not the diagram. It is an abstraction, a set of concepts and relationships between them. Eric Evans Code Smell 33 — Abbreviations Abbreviating is very important so that we look smart and save memory and mind space. Photo by Jessica Knowlden on Unsplash Problems Coupling Bad Naming Declarativeness Ambiguity Readability Premature Optimization Solutions Use meaningful and names. declarative Examples Variable naming Function naming Package naming Class Naming Sample Code Wrong Right Detection We can’t automate choosing what is a name and a . short declarative Some “modern” and shinny languages enforce this bad practice. So we should wisely choose a good language instead. Tags Declarative Conclusion Computer science was born from the mother of science (mathematics). In math, the assignment of single letter variables is a good practice. (i, j, x, y) The concept of reference arose from the variable. Many people wondered why mathematicians can work with such short variables, and computer scientists cannot. For mathematicians, once entered into a formula, variables lose all semantics and become indistinguishable. Our brain wastes a lot of energy figuring out what is the meaning of an abbreviation. It is 2020, We need to write software for humans, not for compilers. A long descriptive name is better than a short enigmatic name. A long descriptive name is better than a long descriptive comment. Robert Martin Code Smell 34 — Too Many Attributes A class defines objects with lots of attributes. Photo by Andy Li on Unsplash Problems Low Cohesion Coupling Maintainability Readability Solutions Find methods related to attributes. Cluster these methods. Break the object related to those clusters. Find real objects related to this new objects and replace existing references. Examples DTOs Denormalized table rows Sample Code Wrong Right Detection Most linters warn when you declare too many attributes. Setting a good warning threshold should be easy. Tags primitive Conclusion Bloated objects know too much and are very difficult to change due to cohesion. Developers change these objects a lot, so they bring merge conflicts and are a common problems source. So much complexity in software comes from trying to make one thing do two things. Ryan Singer Code Smell 35 — State as Properties When an object changes its state the best solution is to change the attribute, isn’t it? Photo by Tom Crew on Unsplash Problems Mutability Attributes polluting Setters Solutions Model states as mathematical set inclusion. State is accidental, take it away from the object. Examples State diagrams Sample Code Wrong Right Detection If we want to be extreme, we should consider every to be a potential state change. Linters can warn us. But we might end up getting too many false positives. setter Exceptions Over Design Performance issues (if a serious benchmark supports it). Tags Mutation Conclusion This technique is very elegant but can lead to over design. For example changing a visual component's color should be a counterexample to this smell. We should be aware and very caution like with any other smell. They are and not rigid rules. hints First make the change easy (warning: this might be hard), then make the easy change. Kent Beck Those were the first 35. Nevertheless, I keep getting more suggestions on , so they won't be the last! twitter

How to Find The Stinky Parts of Your Code (Part VII)

13 Powerful Tips To Improve Your YouTube Channel It is 2020 and the world is under siege by an invisible and unprecedented adversary. Our ways of working, shopping, socializing have all been radically disrupted, with no end in sight. Change has indeed been the only constant this year. What hasn’t changed, though, is the ever-present need for brands to engage with their customers. With people spending almost all of their time on the internet due to the imposed lockdown restrictions the world over, it’s more important than ever to have a rock-solid marketing strategy for your brand. And when it comes to marketing, there’s one place no one can afford to ignore- YouTube. YouTube is the second most visited site in the world ( ) Alexa Topsites Over 2 billion logged-in users visit the site each month ( ) HubSpot 1 billion hours of video are watched every day  ( ) HubSpot Video being the most engaging type of visual content, and YouTube being the video , it’s a no-brainer to have in place an . Whether you already have one or not, you can never rely on stagnant insights to shape your actions. It’s always a good idea to reassess your goals for a dynamic audience. Once you know exactly what you want to achieve through your strategy, the next step is to distil all your requirements into an actionable . Your plan will decide what kind of videos you’ll want to post on your channel, what kind of campaigns you’ll run, who you’ll partner with and how you’ll spread the word. It’ll also decide how you’ll measure the performance of your content and what actions you’ll take based on the insights you’ll gather. platform of choice for 83% of consumers globally effective YouTube Marketing Strategy YouTube Marketing Plan Here we outline you need to keep in mind, to create a killer brand. 13 indispensable tips and tricks categorized into four stages Define Your Strategy 1. You won’t get the desired results unless you know what you want to achieve Do you want your brand to debut on YouTube? Do you want to revive your dormant channel? Or are you in the process of taking the next leap in your ? Brainstorm for a while before diving headfirst into creating videos left, right and center. YouTube growth journey Get in place in order to have a clear view of where you want to take your YouTube presence. Establish a along the way and start working towards smaller, tactical goals, which will eventually add towards your major strategic brand and content goals. specific, measurable and achievable goals target timeline with milestones 2. Narrow down the metrics you’ll use to measure your marketing goals Subscribers, views, likes/dislikes, comments, shares, watch time, clicks; There’s a plethora of metrics you can choose to measure. But what makes sense at this point in your brand journey? Does your product cater to a or interest, like a motorcycle decals service or does it have a mass appeal like a food delivery service? niche problem Your , plus the goals you have set for your brand, will together decide whether metrics like subscribers and views are as important to you as, say, the ratio of your views to your subscribers. Metrics like these help you gauge . market size and your brand lifecycle stage how many of your subscribers are actually engaging with your content 3. Establish a strategic schedule to post videos on your channel The frequency with which you churn out content conveys your brand intent to the viewer. You should commit to a of posting videos on your channel, in addition to the . realistic schedule right day and time to post Research indicates that the , specifically between 2 pm and 4 pm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and between 12 pm and 3 pm on Thursday and Friday. Coming to the best days to post, here, as viewers tend to flock to the site by the end of the work week, and posting one or two days before the weekend gives enough time for YouTube to index your videos. best time of the day to post your videos tends to be around evening Thursdays and Fridays take the cake in many parts of the world and people working from home, you may find viewers deviating a bit from these figures, but by and large, you can safely trust and base your strategy on them. With lockdowns still in force If you find yourself strapped for time and resources, you can always on board a trusted YouTube Marketing Company or a freelancer offering YouTube Marketing Services, and hash it out with them. With these three tips, you are armed with all you need to put in place the broad makings of your strategy. What you need to do next is, leverage YouTube’s various tools and techniques to distil your strategy into a tactical YouTube Marketing Plan. ‘Brand’ Your YouTube Identity 4. Your YouTube channel should be in sync with your brand’s message Remember that your YouTube channel is an advocate of your brand and reflects on your brand perception. Hence, you can never be too careful about your conveyed through your content. channel name, color scheme, and the overall voice Being professional is paramount when maintaining a brand’s YouTube channel and you also need to appear warm and receptive to your viewers. and the perception you need to propagate through your channel. You can then align each of the major facets of your channel in line with this brand message. Tackling this fine balance becomes easier when you are crystal clear about your ‘brand message’ 5. Fully customize every element of your YouTube channel Don’t leave your channel’s Banner and Bio at the mercy of generic images and a soulless copy. on YouTube and it needs to reflect everything your brand stands for. You can have a funky, artistic banner or a slick, professional banner but whatever you choose, make sure it sits in line with your brand identity. Your YouTube channel is your brand’s home Even your Bio is much more than a descriptor for your channel or your brand. It’s an opportunity to , to intimately convey what you feel about your channel and what you want the viewer to feel in turn. This is your chance to be creative, even informal and casual, and leave a lasting impression. connect with the viewer on a deeper level So you have your Strategy in place and your YouTube channel ready to rock. What next? It’s time to get into the crux of the matter - your YouTube Marketing Plan and how to make content that sticks! Leverage the Entire Social Media Ecosystem 6. Explore and experiment with various video types ‘How To’ videos still rank at the top with with a problem they have. But that doesn’t mean you need to ignore all other types of useful and engaging content. 70% of viewers searching for help Viewers today want to watch content that answers a query they have and is entertaining at the same time. You can communicate why your product should rank at the top of their priority list by using videos or . You can make a highly-engaging video pitting your offering against the competition. product showcase tutorials listicle Viewers also respond positively to or videos which highlight your product or service in a positive light by showcasing a successful real-world implementation. So invest in research and be on the lookout for to woo potential customers. customer testimonials client case study new and engaging content types 7. Let your community work for you You have a treasure trove of content hidden inside your most ardent followers, who would love to take part in your brand journey. Don’t forget to leverage them to the fullest. Humans as a species yearn to be part of something bigger than themselves. Perhaps this innate desire is reflected, more than anything else, in social communities. Your subscribers and followers love your brand. You’ve managed to woo them and make them care about what you want to say. Now what? Now you need to offer them a chance to be a part of your family. based around latest trends in your industry or around the which your community cares about the most. Let them create and share videos with catchy hashtags. Reward the most innovative and popular videos and hard work. Run creative contests core tenets of your brand show genuine admiration for your community’s 8. Grow laterally with Partnerships and Influencer Marketing You don't always need to compete with fellow YouTubers in your field. There exist in a mutually beneficial relationship and grow the reach of your channel. Plus, you can also promote your brand and products through who can help you gain access to a larger audience. brands whom you can partner with like-minded influencers Growing by your own is all good, but when you leverage the power of the YouTube ecosystem of Partnerships and Influencers, you stand to grow exponentially. Keep in mind, though, with your established brand image or it could severely backfire. any brand or YouTuber partnership should not be at odds Recent years have seen a spurt in by YouTubers. You cannot afford to lose out on this opportunity if you have a product or service that is consumer-focused and is competing in a crowded market. viewers placing their trust in product reviews 9. Spread the Word outside the platform Just as you stand to gain through other YouTubers, you when your competitors are out there reaping benefits of every other platform Social Media has to offer. cannot afford to be present in a YouTube silo Your viewers are scrolling on every major social media platform imaginable in a 24/7 high-speed sprint on the cyberspace highway. Jumping constantly between and or finding themselves on or even chatting all-day-long on , their eyes are peeled for your content. And you need to deliver. Facebook, Instagram Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp will do the trick here. Snapshots of your YouTube videos on Facebook and Twitter through your page and handle respectively, will keep alive in viewers’ minds. Specifically-curated content for each different platform top-of-the-mind recall Sponsored content on LinkedIn, which links back to your YouTube channel or website also contributes to increased traffic. Lastly, your WhatsApp business account is a personal, unhindered window into the mindspace of your potential customers. You can respond to proactive queries through links to the respective video on your channel. 10. Invest in YouTube Ads Of course, you can’t miss advertising on YouTube itself. No matter how much organic traffic you might be seeing, you need to tap into paid traffic by . investing in various Ad formats offered by YouTube , but the fact of the matter is that they are still a very attractive tool to spread awareness about your brand and gain increased traffic from varied sources. YouTube offers a range of Ad formats for your every need. Ads can get annoying sometimes From and ads to or ads to which the users can skip and ads, you have the liberty to hedge your bets among all the available options. Sponsored Display Banner Overlay in-stream full-length ads 6 to 15 second unskippable Again, you always have the option to outsource all your YouTube Marketing Services needs to third-parties who are skilled and experienced at the job, provided you have budget to spare. A YouTube Marketing Company which happens to be a good fit with your own company’s values can be hard to find, but when you do get a trusted partner to work with, it can do wonders for your brand. So you have your video types, campaigns & partnerships and social media strategy locked in, can you sit back and relax? Not just yet. We’re almost there. Perfect Your Videos For Maximum Punch 11. Optimize every aspect to achieve SEO champions YouTube is the , only behind Google. Without realizing, people treat the site as a go-to place for all kinds of queries. Hence, your SEO strategy should be out of every video. Creating the perfect video for your channel goes beyond shooting a great video. You need to to know how to rank videos at the coveted top spot of the search results. world’s second largest Search Engine optimized for squeezing the maximum juice take into account latest performance statistics Right from your video every aspect should be geared towards optimizing the video for YouTube’s SEO algorithm. Your title and description should answer the core query users might be searching for, while being and prefer using . Title, Duration, Description and Thumbnail to the Language of choice, smart Calls-to-Actions and Tags, suited for viewers who use voice search short, highly-specific keywords tend to perform better. Your video tags should be relevant and comprehensive. YouTube is a global playground and while translating every video may not be apt considering the theme of your channel, you can always . Thumbnails with human portraits use subtitles to break the language barrier need to be smartly integrated to like subscribing, sharing, liking or clicking on related videos or playlists. Calls-to-Actions or CTAs urge your viewers to perform certain actions 12. Don’t forget to utilize YouTube’s native features There are old tools and there are new as well, together to transform your channel from just another brand channel into a professional, dedicated space where your viewers love to spend time. offering highly useful functionality Traditional YouTube features like and offer rich benefits, both to you and your viewers. They go a long way to direct your viewers to more of your related content and are also instrumental in increasing your SEO ranking. Playlists, Transcripts, Cards & Annotations End Screens Newer features like better and offer highly-engaging and in-vogue tools to connect with your ever-demanding viewers. Make it a point to utilize all these features to rank ahead of the competition. 360-degree videos, Subscriber notifications, Live streams, Stories 13. Keep track of what’s working and who’s watching A crucial step in your YouTube Marketing Strategy is your Analytics - to track what kind of content is performing well and to know the viewer mix that is engaging with that content. itself offers a wide variety of metrics and channel reports to gauge the performance of your channel. Keeping in mind the metrics you had decided to track, you can see the subscriber and view count, and . YouTube Studio watch time and average % viewed, impressions, unique viewers, like/dislikes count You also have a view of specific reports for your . YouTube studio also provides , where you can see the your viewers belong to, they choose, their and what they are watching your videos. Cards, End Screens and Playlists performance Audience Analytics Top Countries Top Subtitles/Languages Gender and Age Time of Day To summarize, you need to... 1. Clearly define or relook at your Goals 2. Have a Channel that is in Sync with your Brand 3. Experiment with various content types and leverage the entire social media ecosystem for maximum reach 4. And Optimize your videos & Track desired Analytics to feedback into your Strategy in a continuous loop. So now you know what to do! Regardless of whether you do it in-house or contract outside help, there’s no time like the present to get cracking on your YouTube Marketing Strategy 2020. Further reads? 1. 2. 3. How to Optimize Videos for Youtube's Machine Learning Algorithms 15 Ways to Increase YouTube Subscribers Organically in 2020 15 Creative Ways To Boost Brand Image Through YouTube

How To Create A Winning YouTube Marketing Strategy

The past six weeks have been challenging. As someone who thrives off social interaction and throwing ideas around in a room of people, working from home has been a huge shift for me both mentally and professionally. This transition to working from home has not been one of choice. We have been forced pretty much overnight into unfamiliar working patterns and spaces, often with the additional burden of childcare and other responsibilities. If that wasn’t enough cognitive load, we are also collectively struggling with feelings of loss, fear and uncertainty. Getting anything done under this kind of pressure is an achievement. At the beginning of lockdown and working from home full time, I really struggled without the structure of a commute and clear definitions between work and non-work time. My thoughts slipped back into old anxious habits and to be perfectly honest, I started to worry about my mental health and whether I could withstand the weeks to come. As time has gone on I have found ways of protecting my mental health and am actually starting to get into the remote work lifestyle. These are the things I think make a real difference in protecting your mental health during lockdown: Get outside once a day (if safe). Even if this just involves sticking your head out the door and feeling the wind brush past your face, I believe it’s important we constantly remind ourselves that there is more than our current four walls. I also can’t tell you how important my daily walks have become in allowing me space to think and process what is happening. Some of my best ideas come from these periods out and about, which is unsurprising as a change of scenery works wonders for creativity. Create a clear start and end to the working day Without a commute I initially found it quite hard to define the boundaries between work and non-work time. This made it extremely difficult to relax, as I felt like I had to be constantly “on” and attached to my computer or phone. I’ve tried to replicate my previous routine by incorporating clear “commute” time into the beginning of my day. As I used to walk to work and listen to podcasts or music, I’ve just started doing this for 30m before I sit down at my computer. It makes a real difference in preparing me to start work in the best possible mindset. I mark the end of the day with a walk or some form of exercise. Again, this gives my mind space to decompress and think. Even if burpees and squats aren’t your thing, I highly recommend doing something active, even if it’s just a vigorous cleaning routine. Decorate your workspace Numerous have shown that workplace surroundings have a huge impact on both your productivity and emotional wellbeing. One of the things I’ve actually enjoyed about working from home is the fact I can make my workspace fully my own. studies I’ve moved my desk to where I can best see out the window, put up prints by my partner (shameless plug: you can see and buy them ) and ensured I’m surrounded by my favourite stationary. here Ideally you should try to create a dedicated area that you can work in which can be shut away at the end of the workday. If that’s not possible, you can at least tidy things away out of view so that the space has some separation. (This is a top tip I’ve stolen from my cousin Kate who is an HR expert). Plan things to look forward to during the week This current period can feel expansive and unending in many ways. I’ve been particularly struggling with the fact my weekends very closely match my weekdays, resulting in a big blob of undifferentiated time that seems to pass slowly and painfully. Taking my cue from interval training, which always seems to go a lot faster than slogging it out for an hour, I’ve started to break up the week with clear chunks of fun time which are planned in advance that can be looked forward to. Everyone enjoyed different things and I personally love food, so culinary treats have become part of my “looking forward to things” package. I’ve also scheduled in quizzes with my family, luxurious hour long baths and bought the odd video game or two to be played at set times. Combat Video chat fatigue If you’re finding all the video meetings, remote family quizzes and chats with friends a bit much at the moment, you are not alone. is real and I think we are all collectively realising 8+ hours of back-to-back calls are just not sustainable in the long term. I’m also getting pretty sick of looking at my own face (pro tip: you can usually hide yourself and this helps a lot, especially if your roots are currently as bad as mine). Zoom fatigue During our recent chat for , (GitLab’s Head of Remote) made a great suggestion on how to break out of interactions that keep you glued to a screen. He advised that where possible, try switching over to a voice call. This way you can get up and move about while talking and even go for a walk if that works. GitLab’s Universal Remote Webcast Darren Murph I’d also suggest that it’s an excellent idea to make sure you get a break in-between calls, even if it’s 5-10 minutes to get up and make a cup of tea or go to the toilet. Take a break from the Screen Speaking of breaks, my screen time has slowly but surely increased during this lockdown period. Usually at work in the office I like to go for a walk at lunch to try and get some fresh air and force myself to look further than 30cm in front of my face. At home there can be a real temptation to jump from device to device, especially as you try and stay connected with friends, Twitter and the news, alongside staying on top of work. However it’s important to disconnect, the same way you did back when in-person social plans and travel were possible. I’ve set myself a hard rule that I don’t look at my phone after 9pm (also beneficial for sleep) and I spend at least an hour a day doing something that isn’t screen based, be it drawing, reading or listening to an audiobook. Make post-lockdown plans This is extremely cheesy, but as I’ve got older I’ve become a believer in the power of hope. “This too shall pass” and all of that. It’s along the same lines of planning short term things to look forward to, but I think it’s also important to keep your mind focused on the fact that this unusual period will have an end. I can’t promise you things will go back to the way they were, but we should be able to travel again and see friends and family. That thought is what keeps me going. I’m already starting to research the trip to Orkney I’ve been wanting to take for years. I’ve started thinking about things I want to do at work and the people I want to try and meet when in-person meetings and events are possible. Be really, really, really, kind to yourself This again, is something Darren bought up in our conversation. We all have to remember this isn’t the normal working from home/remote working experience. This is working from home during a global pandemic which has upended most of society. We all need to adapt to these new conditions, but we shouldn’t pretend that’s going to be easy. If you’re struggling, reach out to colleagues and friends. You’re not alone in finding this hard and actually, in some ways, this experience has bought people closer together as so many of us find ourselves in the same situation. I’ve always found that people actually love being asked for help and there’s no shame in it. I’d also like to add that if you’re actually doing OK and enjoying working from home, you shouldn’t feel bad about that. We are allowed to make the most of the situation we find ourselves in and enjoy every single thing possible (this is true anytime, not just now) Finally, celebrate the wins, however small This builds on the idea above that it is OK to enjoy the good things about this period. Perhaps you’re getting more time with loved ones, or have rediscovered old hobbies. For the first time in my adult life I’ve managed to keep plants alive for more than four weeks. Professionally speaking, I’ve actually become more productive in some areas, as I’ve been able to get my head down and smash through my to-do list. Obviously taken on their own, all of the above are satisfying in their own right. But I do this it’s important to celebrate them too. Even if that’s just by mentally congratulating yourself and having a commemorative biscuit. Most of the big positive changes in my life are a result of consecutive small achievements, not big movie style make it or break it moments. Previously published at https://www.bethanvincent.com/blog/2020/4/27/6-weeks-into-working-from-home

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