Skip to main content

December 23, 2020

Today, I'm looking inward and forward to 2021 and all the challenges and opportunities it may bring.

Google Analytics is a beast

Sure, it brings in a ton of data about your website, visits, where they came from, most popular pages, etc. but man, is it unwieldy.

So I've started investigating some training on it. Google does offer some free training, which is always a good starter (using the vendor's own training – I mean, it makes sense). Here it is, if you're interested. There's also a promising Udemy course that I'm looking at if I want to take a deeper dive, and I fear I must 🙂

End of Year Musings

Christmas is almost here and I'm looking forward to taking a little time off. I won't go completely dark, but I will turn down the volume considerably. I'm not a big “goals guy” but I do like to reflect back on the year almost completed and briefly look ahead to determine “where I want to go in 2021.”

I'll be glad when the pandemic is contained and we can return to 2019-level activities like eating out and not wearing masks. I fear, though, that we're a L-O-N-G way from that. I may never go out in public again without wearing a mask. At least, that's how I feel right now. I've felt this way since March.

Speaking of COVID, I just read there are two mutations that are spreading more rapidly than the first one. UGH. When will it be over?

2021 and a bounty of opportunity or just more COVID COVID COVID?

The good thing is, from a very selfish perspective, is that I do all my work from home now (no more Meetups or in-person customer meetings). Everything is online. And since everybody has to use tools like Slack and Zoom, there are new opportunities for me to introduce new training courses.

Everybody is doing nearly everything online.

Speaking of which, I'm most likely going to be doing a new course in early 2021. It will be an evolution of the blogging series of books I published a few years ago on Amazon. I'll be delivering it via podcast. It's looking like it will be free 🙂

The ramifications of the pandemic, and the concomitant online everything all the time, is that our infrastructure will be forced to improve…or die. And I don't think it's going to die (bigass hack notwithstanding). Speeds and bandwidth should improve, especially now that 5G is in more markets now.

PLUS, many businesses have had to adapt to this “new normal,” and the ones that survive will be much stronger because of it.

Creative destruction is something I've read about in my economics study and subsequent interest since I got my degree long ago, but we're definitely seeing it in action right before our eyes. It's painful, it ruins millions of dreams, but it's real. And it's inevitable.

That's it for today. See you tomorrow.


The article was originally published here!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nine Ways to Stay Inspired and Avoid Blogger Burnout

This post is based on episode 170  of the ProBlogger podcast. Most bloggers start off with a huge burst of energy and excitement. But then at some point (often in their first year or two of blogging) they come up against their first bout of “blogger burnout”. Why Does Blogger Burnout Happen? Blogger burnout can materialise in different forms and for different reasons. You may have run out of topic ideas, and feel you’ve said everything there is to say. You may have become disillusioned with your topic, your niche, or blogging in general. Despite working really hard on your blog, you may not think it’s paying off. You may not be reaching the goals you set for yourself. You may feel overworked and worn out. Your blog may no longer align with the reason you started it. For example, you may have wanted to be creative at first, but now you’re focused on making money. You may be overwhelmed by everything you need to do to keep your blog running. Whatever the caus...
Post a Comment
Read more

Put All Your Eggs in One Basket!

But not just ANY basket. You may have noticed that Facebook was down for a L – O – N – G time today. So was Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp (all Facebook apps, or “crapps,” as I call them – LOL). To most of the world, this would bother them. It certainly bothered some heavy FB advertising folks. I suspect the real loss today was in the billions. FB stock lost about $50 billion in market cap. OUCH. But the real question is this: Did it affect you? Did it affect your business? If it did, is there anything you can do to mitigate future losses? The answer is a resounding “YES!”  I've harped on this and at you for over a DECADE now – OWN your own real estate. Don't be a sharecropper. When you run your business on another company's platform, their demise could be yours as well. Plus, they can kick you off their platform at any time for any reason. Just ask former President Trump. (Not to be political, but FB and YouTube kicked him off their plat...
Post a Comment
Read more

Advertising - Get Real

Advertising and marketing are creative disciplines. That's one reason I love being a part of the marketing industry. Finding creative solutions to help clients sell their products and services is a fun way to make a living. Having said that, I must also say that too often I see marketers going too far. In my opinion it is certainly possible to be too creative for your own good. What exactly do I mean by that? Let me share a very public example to explain. My example comes from the reality television show, "The Apprentice." Okay, so I admit it, I LOVE that show. I'm not much of a reality TV fan, but there's something about watching these teams compete on business challenges week in and week out that intrigues and entertains me. Quite often they are given marketing-related tasks on the show. Let's face it, marketing is one of THE most important jobs you'll ever have in business. If you can do it well, your business will more than likely do well. If y...
Post a Comment
Read more