Jacques Corby-Tuech
A personal blog about RevOps and other things
2024-03-09T16:51:20Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com
Jacques Corby-Tuech
jacquescorbytuech@gmail.com
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2024-03-09T16:50:57Z
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2024-03-09T16:50:57Z
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Open Source Marketing Modelling Tools
2024-03-09T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/open-source-marketing-modelling-tools/
<p>A useful resource I've stumbled upon to run MMM and CLV marketing models.</p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/google/lightweight_mmm">Google</a> and <a href="https://github.com/facebookexperimental/Robyn">Facebook</a> both also appear to have open source tools.</p>
<p>The way things are going, this is probably something we should all try to learn, or at least be aware of and have a basic understanding of how they work and where they can and can't be useful.</p>
Gregory Crewdson - Intro to the Soundstage
2022-08-18T19:13:31Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/gregory-crewdson-intro-soundstage/
<p>A great look behind the scenes into Gregory Crewdson's design process when working on a soundstage. In this case from one of the photos in <a href="https://gagosian.com/exhibitions/2005/gregory-crewdson-beneath-the-roses/">Beneath the Roses</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For me, though the real reason to shoot on a soundstage is the control it gives us over the light. Because there are no ceilings, and flats rather than walls, Rick Sands, my director of photography, has enormous freedom with where he places the lights. On location, one of the things that makes me most nervous and aggitated is wind and weather. I canât control it, and it often controls our production.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I can't recommend enough going to see one of Crewdson's exhibitions if you ever get the opportunity.</p>
A/B Testing Intuition Busters
2022-08-18T17:41:17Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/a-b-testing-intuition-busters/
<p>A great deck by <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/trustworthy-online-controlled-experiments/">Ronny Kohavi</a> and others which highlights common mistakes in running online controlled experiments.</p>
A New Conversation About ESPs and CDPs
2022-07-18T23:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/new-conversation-esp-cdp/
<p>A great podcast with Matthew Dunn and Chris Marriott, talking about the emerging trends in the ESP/CDP market.</p>
Parcel 2.0
2022-07-18T19:13:31Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/parcel-2/
<p>The best email code editor just got better with Parcel 2.0.</p>
<p>Stellar work as always by Avi Goldman.</p>
Don't Throw Data Governance Out With the Bathwater
2022-04-23T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/retl-cdp-data-activation-governance/
<p>A post by the folks over at Hightouch<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/retl-cdp-data-activation-governance/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup> caught my eye yesterday.</p>
<p>In it, they argue that the <a href="https://hightouch.io/blog/cdps-are-dead/">Customer Data Platform is dead</a><sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/retl-cdp-data-activation-governance/#fn2" id="fnref2">[2]</a></sup>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) as we know them are fundamentally broken. In the next few years, every CDP vendor (Segment, mParticle, Treasure Data, etc.) will either pivot their offering to an unbundled, warehouse-first offering or completely lose relevance in the market.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It's an interesting premise, and one that I think is worth exploring.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/retl-cdp-data-activation-governance/#fn3" id="fnref3">[3]</a></sup></p>
<p>CDP's are platforms that fulfil a few key functions in an operational data stack. Firstly, they facilitate data collection through tracking scripts, while helping to resolve and unify customer identity. Secondly, they allow data to be activated, that is sent from one tool to another. For example you can send an <code>Order Placed</code> event to your email marketing platform, allowing you to send an order confirmation email to the customer. Thirdly, they provide some degree of data transformation and calculation, allowing you to create custom calculated traits on customer profiles that can then be activated and sent to external tools, for example, the total number of pages a customer has viewed in the last 7 days can be sent to your CRM.</p>
<p>These, as they propose, are all things that are ripe to be replaced through more specialised tools, I won't go into the specifics as there are literally hundreds of players in the space, but one could easily unbundle a CDP if these three components are all you care about.</p>
<p>But there's more to it than that.</p>
<p>Almost four years ago, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation">GDPR</a> came into effect, a month later, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Act">CCPA</a> followed. Organisations that use data have a legal obligation to collect and use data in a manner that is compliant with the law.</p>
<p>CDP's understand this and they provide tools<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/retl-cdp-data-activation-governance/#fn4" id="fnref4">[4]</a></sup> to their customers to ensure that there are layers of data governance at the user and destination level.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for rETL vendors. This problem is particularly jarring given that they are starting to position themselves as tools for non-technical users through <a href="https://hightouch.io/audiences/">Hightouch Audiences</a> and <a href="https://www.getcensus.com/segments">Census Segments</a>.</p>
<p>This isn't an impossible problem for them to solve, but it's painful to see a data vendor ignoring this critical aspect of data governance. And look, I get it, you're a hot startup that's received giant globs of VC money and now you need to make good on it, but please, <em>do better</em>.</p>
<p>Allowing a free-for-all with customer's personal data will not end well for anyone.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Hightouch are a reverse ETL (rETL) vendor, they allow data to be sent from a data warehouse to an external application <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/retl-cdp-data-activation-governance/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>In this case, Customer Data Platform meaning tools like <a href="https://segment.com/">Segment</a>, <a href="https://www.mparticle.com/">mParticle</a> and <a href="https://tealium.com/">Tealium</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/retl-cdp-data-activation-governance/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>If I were an rETL vendor I'd be more concerned about the rise of <a href="https://benn.substack.com/p/the-data-app-store">apps built directly on top of the warehouse</a>... <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/retl-cdp-data-activation-governance/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>Examples from <a href="https://segment.com/docs/privacy/portal/">Segment</a>, <a href="https://docs.mparticle.com/guides/data-privacy-controls/">mParticle</a> and <a href="https://community.tealiumiq.com/t5/iQ-Tag-Management/Consent-Preferences-Manager/ta-p/22715">Tealium</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/retl-cdp-data-activation-governance/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Marketing and the Modern Data Stack
2022-04-07T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/
<p><em>There is a huge transformation happening in the data space.</em></p>
<p>I know this because, alongside my main duties running Marketing Operations at CyberSmart, I've been lucky enough to have a front-row seat in building our data capabilities and operational maturity<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup>.</p>
<p>The latter has led to a lot of long hours as I seek to rapidly educate myself on an industry that's changing at breakneck pace, this post is an attempt to distil what I've learnt and to hopefully help steer fellow Marketing Ops and Rev Ops folks in the right direction as they in turn seek to navigate this landscape.</p>
<p>As MOps we've probably experienced some of these changes first-hand. Certainly, if you're anything like me and have been in the space for a few years, you might have seen us go from siloed platforms being fed CSV's of simple data, either manually or if you were lucky, via automated SFTP, to a current state where tools are directly integrated via API's, Customer Data Platforms (CDP) or through tools such as Zapier<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fn2" id="fnref2">[2]</a></sup>.</p>
<p>And, well, the complexity of the data we use has changed too. It's no longer good enough to batch and blast an identical campaign to tens or hundreds of thousands of people. Now you need to be able to segment your audiences and personalise your campaigns on the fly. This means platforms have either needed to adapt to support bespoke business data models of increasing complexity or businesses have had to spend long and expensive engineering hours adapting their data to bespoke platform schemas, often at the cost of utility or usability.</p>
<p>Of course, this goes beyond traditional push media (email, SMS, push), you need to understand where prospects are in your buying or customer journey to more efficiently target them across platforms and devices. You need to know who's stopped using your product so you can tell a Customer Success Manager to call that customer and find out what's gone wrong.</p>
<p>Finally, you need to report on the effectiveness of your campaigns and your strategy. Often this means looking at data in a silo, you'll look at your email data in isolation, or your product data or advertising data. While the adoption of integrated marketing "clouds" and CDP's has gone a long way towards minimising this problem it still all-too-often rears its ugly head.</p>
<p>The email marketers amongst us, for example, will be familiar with the concept of list cleansing - that is, removing unengaged contacts from an email list after a period of inactivity. But if you're <em>only</em> looking at email data you're potentially missing out. Why would you remove someone from your list if they're still visiting your website, using your app or purchasing your products?</p>
<p>In short, you need data, lots of it and it needs to be tightly integrated across the entire customer lifecycle.</p>
<h2>The landscape is changing</h2>
<p>In 2020, the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz published an article called <a href="https://future.a16z.com/emerging-architectures-for-modern-data-infrastructure-2020/">Emerging Architectures for Modern Data Infrastructure</a><sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fn3" id="fnref3">[3]</a></sup> in which they outlined the explosive growth within the data infrastructure market.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In fact, many of todayâs fastest growing infrastructure startups build products to manage data. These systems enable data-driven decision making (analytic systems) and drive data-powered products, including with machine learning (operational systems). They range from the pipes that carry data, to storage solutions that house data, to SQL engines that analyze data, to dashboards that make data easy to understand â from data science and machine learning libraries, to automated data pipelines, to data catalogs, and beyond.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Data-Report-Martin-Inline-Graphics-R7-06-1.webp"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Data-Report-Martin-Inline-Graphics-R7-06-1.webp" alt="A unified data infrastructure architecture" /></a></p>
<p>Image by a16z.</p>
<p>This proved to be a rather prophetic take and we're increasingly seeing consolidation across the data stack, with clear category leaders starting to emerge as data platforms seek to <a href="https://benn.substack.com/p/datas-horizontal-pivot">grow horizontally</a> and thus become a better integrated part in a holistic system.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Second, as companies become operationally dependent on data, vertically integrated data products create another problem: Data is segregated by tool and function. Product reporting lives in one place; sales in another; marketing in another. Like being able to go to BevMo ... and buy any beer you want, itâs nice to go to one place for all the data you need. And unlike beer at BevMo, dataâs often best consumed when blended with other data</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/horizontal-data-stack.jpeg"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/horizontal-data-stack.jpeg" alt="The horizontal data stack" /></a></p>
<p>Image by Benn.</p>
<p>Modern data stacks are increasingly using tools like <a href="https://www.fivetran.com/">Fivetran</a>, <a href="https://www.stitchdata.com/">Stitch</a> or <a href="https://airbyte.com/">Airbyte</a> to pull data from our marketing tools and into a consolidated data warehouse<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fn4" id="fnref4">[4]</a></sup>. This allows a savvy MOps professional to consolidate all of their data in one place, so that they can <a href="https://benn.substack.com/p/metrics-layer">model it in a tool like dbt or LookML</a> before in turn sending it on back into our marketing tools.</p>
<p>In practice, we've recently seen the rise of Reverse ETL tools to fill that gap - these tools exist to help businesses get data out of the data warehouse and into the tools that make use of it, with <a href="https://www.getcensus.com/">Census</a> and <a href="https://hightouch.io/">HighTouch</a> leading the way in growth and investment.</p>
<p>What does that investment look like? $60 million for Census<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fn5" id="fnref5">[5]</a></sup> and $40 million for Hightouch<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fn6" id="fnref6">[6]</a></sup>, but other parts of the data stack are raising even more eye watering amounts of money with dbt<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fn7" id="fnref7">[7]</a></sup> and Airbyte<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fn8" id="fnref8">[8]</a></sup> both being recent winners. Clearly, there's a change in the air and VC's are lining up to find the eventual winner.</p>
<h2>But what does this actually mean?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1nERFM9brA&t=3458s">As predicted by Martin Casado</a>, we're starting to see this change beginning to take form within the world of MarTech.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think we're going to remake all the SaaS apps as data apps, right, I think Segment for CDP was just one example, I think Panther's doing a great job at SIEM and I think we're going to go through all of them. Workday, Salesforce, Adobe they're just going to be reimplemented as apps on top of the data layer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://messagegears.com/">MessageGears</a>, <a href="https://www.getvero.com/">Vero</a> and <a href="https://www.supergrain.com/">Supergrain</a> are leading the way here<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fn9" id="fnref9">[9]</a></sup>, with all three clearly positioning themselves as warehouse integrated apps. It's inevitable that we'll soon see this change with a new breed of best in class MarTech apps following the horizontal unbundling seen above with specialised tools offering segmentation<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fn10" id="fnref10">[10]</a></sup>, orchestration, <a href="https://www.taxiforemail.com/">construction</a> and broadcast to send campaigns directly to consumer devices or clients.</p>
<p>Some, like <a href="https://phrasee.co/">Phrasee</a>, are well positioned to make the most of this change, others, the bundled marketing clouds of this world, will inevitably suffer as their customers move to nimbler offerings.</p>
<p>This change is only beginning to take shape, the pebble has only started to roll down the mountain but it's inevitable that we'll soon see unbundling across the entire MarTech landscape.</p>
<p>This can only be a good thing. Marketers will soon be freed from the concerns of data and technology that currently plague their days, allowing them to focus on the actual job that marketers should always have been doing, delivering the best marketing campaigns they can.</p>
<p>This also opens up the doors for significantly improved regulatory compliance and security across the entire marketing function. GDPR is here to stay and other countries are following suit in ensuring individuals are protected by robust data and privacy laws. It is much easier to maintain control of a tightly knit stack instead of the siloed data we see today and we'll see far fewer cybersecurity incidents like the recent hacks of <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/04/mailchimp-internal-tool-breach/">MailChimp</a>, <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/if-you-kyc-you-should-cya">ActiveCampaign</a> and <a href="https://www.techradar.com/news/hubspot-hacked-putting-major-crypto-firms-at-risk">HubSpot</a>.</p>
<p>I'm excited to see where and how this changes the way marketers fundamentally operate, I hope others are as well.</p>
<h2>Further reading</h2>
<p>If this is something you're interested in, I highly recommend the following</p>
<p>Newsletters</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://benn.substack.com/">https://benn.substack.com/</a></li>
<li><a href="https://sarahsnewsletter.substack.com/">https://sarahsnewsletter.substack.com/</a></li>
<li><a href="https://substack.com/profile/64081583-david-jayatillake">https://substack.com/profile/64081583-david-jayatillake</a></li>
<li><a href="https://arpitc.substack.com/">https://arpitc.substack.com/</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Podcasts</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://roundup.getdbt.com/">https://roundup.getdbt.com/</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Blogs</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://airbyte.com/blog">https://airbyte.com/blog</a></li>
<li><a href="https://blog.getcensus.com/">https://blog.getcensus.com/</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hightouch.io/blog/">https://hightouch.io/blog/</a></li>
</ul>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>I'd also like to shoutout Mike Seville, CDO at Paymentsense/Dojo who really helped me on the path towards thinking more hoslitically about the role of data in the work I do. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>There's probably an acronym, I just don't know it. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://future.a16z.com/emerging-architectures-modern-data-infrastructure/">Now updated for 2021</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>The Cloud warehouse <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/16/investing/snowflake-ipo/index.html">Snowflake saw their shares double</a> at their IPO in late 2020 <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn5" class="footnote-item"><p>Census recently raised <a href="https://blog.getcensus.com/series-b-the-future-of-operational-analytics/">$60 million</a> for their series B funding round <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fnref5" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn6" class="footnote-item"><p>Hightouch recently raised <a href="https://hightouch.io/blog/series-b/">$40 million</a> for their series B funding round <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fnref6" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn7" class="footnote-item"><p>dbt recently raised <a href="https://blog.getdbt.com/next-layer-of-the-modern-data-stack/">$222 million</a> for their series D funding round <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fnref7" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn8" class="footnote-item"><p>Airbyte recently raised <a href="https://airbyte.com/blog/a-150m-series-b-to-power-the-movement-of-data">$150 million</a> for their series B funding round <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fnref8" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn9" class="footnote-item"><p>If you know of any more, please let me know! <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fnref9" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn10" class="footnote-item"><p>Both <a href="https://blog.getcensus.com/census-segments-build-audiences-without-sql/">Census</a> and <a href="https://hightouch.io/audiences/">Hightouch</a> now offer visual audience builders as part of their rETL offering, allowing marketers to build complex segments without needing to know SQL. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketing-modern-data-stack/#fnref10" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
How AdTech Works
2022-03-27T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/how-adtech-works/
<p>A presentation by Dr Johnny Ryan to the European Commission expert group on the Online Platform Economy.</p>
Scenes From Prehistoric Life
2021-12-31T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/scenes-from-prehistoric-life/
<p>Not my usual sort of read, but a fascinating look back at architecural sites in Britain and the human scenes that could have occured around them. I found this to be a really engaging read. Not my usual sort of thing but great nevertheless.</p>
Noise
2021-12-31T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/noise/
<p>Having read and thoroughly enjoyed <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/thinking-fast-and-slow">Thinking Fast and Slow</a> by Kahneman back in 2020 I was expecting good things from this. Unfortunately, it failed to deliver.</p>
<p>This is one of those books that would have been better served as a 2,000 word blog post, instead it's a ~450 page bore.</p>
<p>TL;DR don't waste your time on this.</p>
The Laundromat
2021-12-31T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-laundromat/
<p>If you paid attention to the news over the last few years you're probably familiar with the story of Mossack Fonseca and how the rich use complex shell companies to avoid tax regulations worldwide.</p>
<p>This is an incredibly well researched book that takes a deep dive into some of the detail you likely missed if you only followed the work of the <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/">ICIJ</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The borderlines of the secrecy world, the distance between what is hidden and the public's right to know, was shifting quickly. 'We live in a time of inexpensive, limitless digital storage and fast internet connections that transcend national boundaries,' the anonymous leaker wrote. 'It doesn't take much to connect the dots: from start to finish, inception to global media distribution, the next revolution will be digitized.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>More relevant now than ever with everything happening around the world.</p>
Cheap
2021-12-31T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/cheap/
<p>Cheap is a fantastic look at modern consumer culture and how we got here.</p>
<p>Society is addicted to low-cost goods, but that comes at a very real cost, to society, to the environment and to our own futures.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Discounters gave the common man and woman the opportunity to eschew the cobbler and the darning needle, to break in a brand-new pair of shoes or socks when their toes poked through the old ones. Discounters made ordinary folks feel rich by putting a wide selection of goods within easy reach of all but the most meager budgets. Someone had to pay, of course, but that someone need not be the customer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Give this a read and think about it next time you reach for discount goods on Amazon.</p>
The Premonition
2021-12-04T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-premonition/
<p>I'm generally a fan of Michael Lewis, as my reading recommendations can attest to. This however, felt like a miss. A little unfinished, a little rushed to the press for the story to remain relevant.</p>
<p><em>The Premonition</em> is an interesting look into the Covid response in the US, from experts in the field, showing the extent some individuals went to bring clarity and solutions to fight the pandemic.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The greatest trick the CDC ever pulled was convincing the world containment wasnât possible,â she said. âOur dignity was lost in not even trying to contain it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We're still living through the pandemic, so it feels too early to really do a post-mortem on the Covid respond. It's fair to see it could, and should, have been a lot better. <em>The Premonition</em> shows us how things started to go wrong and what few things went right.</p>
<p>I'd love to read an updated version of this in a few years, but I wouldn't recommend this book in its current state.</p>
The Price of Inequality
2021-12-04T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-price-of-inequality/
<p>Stiglitz sets a compelling narrative in The <em>Price of Inequality</em>, that is, the world is becoming increasingly economically unequal.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The more divided a society becomes in terms of wealth, the more reluctant the wealthy are to spend money on common needs. The rich donât need to rely on government for parks or education or medical care or personal security.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I come from a middle-class background, but looking at my life now, I can't help but think that I, and most of the people alongside me, are now members of the working class. There is, clearly, something rotten at the core of our society. The result is a lack of opportunity and a lack of fair reward for work done. We produce more, but the fruits of our labour remain at the top, rather than trickling down.</p>
<p>As <em>Stiglitz</em> so eloquently points out, until we decide to take this issue more seriously, things will continue to get worse. Unfortunately I have no consequence that the powers that be have any incentive to change things for the better for the 99%.</p>
Excel 2019 for Advertising Statistics
2021-08-28T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/excel-2019-for-advertising-statistics/
<p>I was hoping to learn a few things but <em>Excel 2019 for Advertising Statistics</em> was really disappointing. Lots of time wasted talking about how to format an Excel sheet to the author's particular tastes (without mentioning Tables) and very little time going through Excel's statistical functions.</p>
<p>Don't waste your time or money on this one.</p>
The Signal and the Noise
2021-06-19T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-signal-and-the-noise/
<p>You probably know about Nate Silver from his work on <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/">FiveThirtyEight</a>, the popular polling analysis website.</p>
<p>In <em>The Signal and the Noise</em>, Silver talks about the history of polling and prediction, from basketball to weather, earthquakes, politics, economics, chess and more. Silver explains the common failings that apply to predictions, and how humans in general are just not very good at understanding uncertainty.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One of the pervasive risks that we face in the information age, as I wrote in the introduction, is that even if the amount of knowledge in the world is increasing, the gap between what we know and what we think we know may be widening.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_statistics">Bayesian statistics</a> takes centre stage throughout, with frequent examples showing the application to real world scenarios and showing how it's usually better than other statistical methods.</p>
<p><em>The Signal and the Noise</em> provides a great overview of how statistics is used in the real world, and where breakthroughs are being made. It also highlights common mistakes practicioners make and how susceptible we are to making mistakes in how we approach uncertainty in the real world.</p>
<p>I'd absolutely recommend this to anyone interested in learning more the real world applications of statistics.</p>
An Email Marketer's Take on Apple Mail Privacy Protection
2021-06-10T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/email-marketers-take-apple-mail-privacy-protection/
<p>At their WWDC21 event on Monday, Apple announced a host of new privacy changes coming to iOS15, not least of which is <a href="https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021-10085/?time=708">Mail Privacy Protection</a>, billed as a way to protect privacy for users reading their emails.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In order to make email rich and engaging, emails often contain remotely-hosted images. When a mail program displays one of those emails, remote images are fetched, revealing when, roughly where, and on what kind of device the mail was opened. Many marketing emails now include unique image URLs for each user, or even invisible pixels, specifically to link this information to people when they read their messages. This resulted in people choosing between text-only emails to preserve privacy, or rendering emails with full content, but revealing mail activity. In iOS 15, we're introducing Mail Privacy Protection. People can choose to have iOS privately load remote message content, hiding their mail activity. This is really cool! And it's great news for you. More people will read your emails, with all the images and visuals you included.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the past, I've written about the <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/gdpr-email-tracking">legal issues</a> I see surrounding open tracking. I've also spoken about the issue on the excellent <a href="https://www.emailtalk.fm/episodes/06-privacy-round-table-w-dylan-smith-jacques-corby-tuech-jay-oram">EmailTalk podcast</a> alongside some great email marketers.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, nothing's changed since.</p>
<p>As an industry, we've failed to do the right thing. And now, well, Apple are forcing the issue for us. Understandably, many aren't happy about this. We <em>need</em> that data, don't we?</p>
<p>There's been an outpouring of opinion and think pieces from folks in the email industry since Monday, including these particular highlights from <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sSaXryabL5zqQorDncmgC_o7wcEwvkkbDiXp2gd2EHk/edit">Justine Jordan</a> and <a href="https://wordtothewise.com/2021/06/about-the-apple-thing/">Laura Atkins</a>. They're both worth reading as they expose several issues from a broader marketing and deliverability perspective. Particularly the overreliance of email marketers on weak signals (opens).</p>
<p>Others are predicting the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/8/22525195/apple-mail-protection-privacy-pixel-tracking-newsletters-substack">apocalypse</a>, it's not an opinion I share but I mention it for the sake of balance.</p>
<p>What MPP means for Apple Mail users is the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>The sender will not know whether you opened an email or not</li>
<li>The sender will not know how many times you opened the email</li>
<li>The sender will not know where you are when you opened the email (based on IP address)</li>
<li>The sender will not know what device you are opening the email on</li>
</ul>
<p>These are all inarguably good things from a privacy point of view. I wish Apple would go further and block click tracking outright too, but I suspect that's rather more complex.</p>
<p>From a sender perspective this will happen:</p>
<ul>
<li>You won't have accurate open reporting for MPP protected recipients</li>
<li>You won't know when a recipient opened an email</li>
<li>You won't know where the recipient is who opened the email</li>
<li>You won't know what device the recipient is using to read their email</li>
</ul>
<p>Given Apple Mail's 45% market share<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/email-marketers-take-apple-mail-privacy-protection/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup> this quickly puts open data into the not-worth-looking-at category. We will have to adapt our email programs to look at harder to measure signals.</p>
<p>What Apple are doing here with MPP isn't radical, if anything it's an extension to the <a href="https://gmail.googleblog.com/2013/12/images-now-showing.html">image caching gmail rolled out</a> way back in 2013. At the time, many thought that'd be the end for tracking opens, but that turned out not to be the case.</p>
<p>What's going to be interesting to see is who else follows Apple in rolling this out. I would be shocked if Google didn't introduce something similar in the very near future. It's a no-brainer way for them to score some pro-privacy points without any effect on their core advertising business.</p>
<p>On that front, I think we're about to see the inbox get radically shaken up.</p>
<p>Last year, Verizon announced their new <a href="https://blog.postmaster.verizonmedia.com/post/616023179026202624/increasing-relevance-performance-through-vto">View Time Optimization</a> product, allowing marketers to get their email directly in front of a subscriber right as they're interacting with the inbox. With send time optimisation<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/email-marketers-take-apple-mail-privacy-protection/#fn2" id="fnref2">[2]</a></sup> effectively becoming worthless in a post-MPP world I think we'll soon see similar commercial offerings get rolled out by Google and Microsoft for their own email inbox products. I don't think this is a good thing, but there's too much money to be made here for it to not become <em>a thing</em>.</p>
<p>From a recipient perspective, I like this. <em>I don't want to be tracked by marketers without my express consent</em>. And marketers is a best case scenario here, there are plenty of nefarious use cases for email tracking. More privacy in email is a <em>good thing</em>.</p>
<p>I hope this provides the shakeup the email marketing industry sorely needs.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>According to <a href="https://emailclientmarketshare.com/">Litmus</a>. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/email-marketers-take-apple-mail-privacy-protection/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Send Time Optimisation typically works by sending emails based on when the recipient has historically engaged with past emails. If you always open emails at 9am, you'll be sent them at 9am. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/email-marketers-take-apple-mail-privacy-protection/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Unruly Waters
2021-05-23T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/unruly-waters/
<p><em>Unruly Waters</em> is a really fascinating look at the importance of water in South Asia, but more particularly that of India. Notably, Amrith talks about the difficulties of predicting the monsoon and the rise of meteorology in South Asia as a result. Never far away is the ghost of past droughts and subsequent famines that have had a devastating human cost in South Asia over the last few centuries.</p>
<p>The ghost of European colonialism is never far away with the impact of British hydraulic projects still being felt across India. There are also other political threats, notably China's annexation of Tibet, <a href="https://www.greattibettour.com/tibet-travel-tips/top-6-rivers-rising-from-tibetan-plateau.html">the source</a> of most of South Asia's most important rivers. <em>Amrith</em> does a fantastic job of explaining the importance of water from a political perspective and highlights notable events that've happened in the continent since India gained it's independence.</p>
<p>Amrith also does a fantastic job of highlighting the impacts of climate change and large-scale dam building. India alone has <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dams_and_reservoirs_in_India">thousands</a> of large dams, many of which are <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-flood-climate-change-hydropower-idUSKBN2AB1CY">at risk</a> as glaciers melt in the Himalayas.</p>
<p>A deeply fascinating read that I'd recommend to anyone that's interested in the history and politics of water.</p>
On Photography
2021-05-23T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/on-photography/
<p>A long and at-times rambling essay on the impact of photography on art and society. The role photography played in society when this was first published in 1973 has changed quite dramatically. It would be fascinating to hear Sontag's take on how the medium has evolved and how society has evolved with it.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Photographs cannot create a moral position, but they can reinforce one-and can help build a nascent one.</p>
</blockquote>
Email Resources
2021-05-08T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/email-resources/
<p>An awesome collection of email resources curated by <a href="https://twitter.com/theavigoldman">Avi Goldman</a>.</p>
The Square and the Tower
2021-05-03T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-square-and-the-tower/
<p>A really interesting concept, poorly executed. <em>The Square and the Tower</em> is supposed to be about the dynamic between hierarchies and networks and how these dynamics have affected historic events. It's unfortunate, then, that <em>Ferguson</em> does a poor job of explaining this in any meaningful way. No effort is made to hide his political leanings towards the end, leading to tedious bashing of <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/no-logo">Naomi Klein</a> and blaming "Liberals" for many of modern society's failings.</p>
<p>This had so much potential. Alas.</p>
The Spider Network
2021-05-03T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-spider-network/
<p>I recall hearing about Libor in the news a decade ago but not really understanding what it was or why it was significant. David Enrich does a fantastic job of making this story accessible to a layman like myself while explaining the complex web of relationships that lay at the heart of the scandal.</p>
<p>This is a story about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hayes_(trader)"><em>Tom Hayes</em></a> and his network of brokers and bankers who helped him rig Libor rates, earning his employer hundreds of millions of pounds in the process.</p>
<p>The Spider network leaves no doubt to the criminality of the network, or the topsy-turvy incentive structure at major banks that led to Tom and many other bankers to rig rates in their favour, at the cost of the everyday public.</p>
<p>This is filled with titbits gleaned from recorded phone calls, emails and instant messages, showing the cut-throat world these trades and brokers engaged in.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>These dumb-money clients, or âmuppets,â which bought something and then held on to it for months, maybe years, didnât fit into the industryâs carnivorous culture and werenât especially good for the trading business. Brokers, face-to-face with one of these sloths, had the distinct pleasure of finding a predator to take the other side of the tradeâand Hayes was increasingly hearing the words Iâve got a gift for you. The lucky trader (in this case, him) would be able to do the deal at a favorable price that a more sophisticated institution, such as a fast-moving hedge fund, would never accept.</p>
</blockquote>
Exploring Environmental Ethics
2021-05-03T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/exploring-environmental-ethics/
<p>More of an intro to philosophy than anything but <em>Exploring Environmental Ethics</em> was an interesting and quick intro into the ethical debates that surround environmentalism, particularly land ownership and stewardship.</p>
Thinking in Bets
2021-04-11T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/thinking-in-bets/
<p>I really enjoyed this one, it made me think a lot about how I approach problems in my personal and professional life and how I engage with other people.</p>
<p>In particular. what stuck out was the section on confirmatory versus exploratory thought, which is something I've observed in the past without really thinking much about it.</p>
<p><em>Confirmatory thought</em> can also be thought of as confirmation bias, that is we're predisposed to confirm things that we already agree with.</p>
<p><em>Exploratory thought</em> takes a more neutral approach to a problem and explores it from all sides, while being careful to avoid existing biases held by the individual or group.</p>
<p>Another thing that stuck out in <em>Thinking in Bets</em> was Merton's CUDOS system. That is;</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>C</strong>ommunism - all data belongs to the group</li>
<li><strong>U</strong>niversalism - apply the same standards to claims and evidence regardless of their source</li>
<li><strong>D</strong>isinterestedness - be wary of conflicts of interest that may exist</li>
<li><strong>O</strong>rganised <strong>S</strong>cepticism - encourage scepticism in the group to encourage <em>exploratory thought</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Finally, <em>Thinking in Bets</em> also raises the concept of the 10-10-10 approach to decision making. Which means takin the time to think about an event or decision and how you might feel about it in 10 minutes, 10 months and 10 years time. This approach pioneered by Suzy Welch encourages us to engage <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/thinking-fast-and-slow">system 2</a> when it comes to decision making.</p>
<p>I'm definitely going to be making more conscious efforts in the future to apply these methodologies to my life</p>
The Shallows
2021-04-07T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-shallows/
<p><em>The Shallows</em> bills itself as a book about how the internet is changing our brains, but it's about much more than that. Alluding to Socrates and Plato, <em>The Shallows</em> is about how our brain adapts to new tools and technologies, period.</p>
<p>The internet is merely another technology, the long line of which can be followed from speech and the development of spoken language, to writing, to the wide availability of books when Gutenberg invented his printing press, to radio and the telephone and ultimately through to the current era's <em>always-on</em> internet connectivity.</p>
<p>What The Shallows doesn't propose is a way to combat the negative parts of this. How can we use technology but not allow technology to <em>use us</em>?</p>
<p>I read Nir Eyal's <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/hooked">Hooked</a> last year, which outlines a methodology to trick people's brains into becoming addicted to digital products<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-shallows/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup>. It's time people wised up to the negative aspects of habit-forming technology and took a stand against it.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Yes that's as gross as it sounds. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-shallows/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
The Boundless Sea
2021-04-06T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-boundless-sea/
<p><em>The Boundless Sea</em> is about the human history of the oceans. It's a story of human migration, trade, war, empire and more spanning thousands of years across the entire globe.</p>
<p>Due to the nature of the topic, European imperialism comes up time and time again and it's easy to quickly grasp what impact that's had on the modern world.</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Why</em> do people thousands of kilometres apart look the same?</li>
<li><em>Why</em> do cuisines use ingredients that are not found locally?</li>
<li><em>Why</em> do certain languages sound the same, despite being separated by thousands of kilometres?</li>
<li><em>Why</em> are conflicts centred around certain specific areas of the world?</li>
</ul>
<p>David Abulafia deserves all the praise he's received for this one, I've yet to read anything quite as thorough and detailed while covering, in incredible depth, thousands of years of continent spanning history. He manages all this while keeping the book relatively light and accessible compared to some other history books I've read.</p>
<p>Quite fortuitously, reading about the building of the Suez Canal <a href="https://qz.com/1988427/how-ships-avoid-the-suez-canal-and-how-much-cargo-flows-through-it/">while it was blocked</a> by the Ever Given made the content all the more engaging.</p>
<p>This book was a bit of a mammoth undertaking to read, weighing in at ~900 pages of rather small point text. Don't let that put you off. It's well worth it.</p>
NFT's Aren't the Answer to the IRL Problems of Digital Art
2021-03-13T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/writing/irl-problem-digital-art-nft/
<p>Digital Art has a problem. The vast majority of digital artworks live only as digital artifacts. .jpg, .gif, .whatever files that exist only in the digital realm, taking space on a hard drive, being viewed solely through the medium of a screen.</p>
<p>These artworks are infinitely reproducible and therefore hard to value, if anyone can own a perfect copy of the work with the click of a button, what value does it have?</p>
<h2>What's an Artist to do?</h2>
<p>This is the question many artists must ask themselves. Some choose to get around this problem by selling their work as physical media. As prints on high quality paper, tshirts, mugs, whatever. This introduces artificial scarcity to the work and by limiting access to the original digital file the artist is able to control access to the work. Of course, there's nothing stopping someone from scanning a print and selling copies of the work in turn if there's sufficiently high demand.</p>
<p><a href="https://inconvergent.net/2018/impossible-architecture/"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/images/post-images/anders-hoff-inconvergent.jpg" alt="Generative artwork by Anders Hoff" /></a></p>
<p>Some others take this further, <a href="https://inconvergent.net/">Anders Hoff</a>, whose work is pictured above creates generative artworks reminiscent of digital art pioneer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Mohr">Manfred Mohr</a>. These works are then translated into one of-a-kind physical media through an Axidraw device, which physically draws the digital work onto paper using a pen or brush.</p>
<div style="padding:56.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;"><iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/284380440?dnt=1" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div><script src="https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js"></script>
<p>Others, like Davide Quayola go further yet. Inspired by unfinished rennaisance sculptures, Quayola collaborated with <a href="https://deskriptiv.com/captives-quayola">Deskriptiv</a> to produce a work called <em>Captives</em>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>âIn every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped, and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it. The best artist has that thought alone which is contained within the marble shell; the sculptorâs hand can only break the spell to free the figures slumbering in the stone. The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection."<br />
~ Michelangelo (1501) ~</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://quayola.com/work/series/sculpture-factory.php"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/images/post-images/davide-quayola-sculpture-factory.jpg" alt="Sculpture Factory by Davide Quayola" /></a></p>
<p>This collaboration resulted in a digital algorithm, the outputs of which were curated by Quayola to then produce a number of 3D printed sculptures. Ultimately this work would further evolve from that point, creating a Sculpture Factory, an assembly line of unfinished physical artifacts, based on digital code.</p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/q_Rl_ZWXrfs" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>In a similar vein, generative artist <a href="https://robbiebarrat.github.io/">Robbie Barrat</a><sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/writing/irl-problem-digital-art-nft/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup> uses his technical development skills to train AI and machine learning models, the output of which he curates in a series of works. In a recent collaboration with ACNE, Barrat created a <a href="https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2020-menswear/acne-studios">menswear capsule collection</a> using AI to generate the clothing design.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/images/post-images/robbie-barrat-acne.jpg"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/images/post-images/robbie-barrat-acne.jpg" alt="ACNE x Robbie Barrat" /></a></p>
<p>One thing these three digital artists have in common is that they've produced physical goods to be sold as art. Whether it's "handmade" prints, unique sculptures or a piece of clothing. These are all things that can be tangibly experienced and owned.</p>
<p>Other artists get around this problem by selling their work as digital artifacts on specialist marketplaces such as <a href="https://www.seditionart.com/">Sedition</a>. Artificially limiting the number of digital copies available within the marketplace and providing a way for purchasers to view their work in a digital gallery or as a screensaver on a mobile, computer, tv, etc. Sedition features work from internationally renowned artists like Damien Hirst, who produced an exclusive throwback to his <em>For The Love of God</em> artwork by selling a .gif of a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y_8DWg5W0w">diamond encrusted platinum baby skull</a><sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/writing/irl-problem-digital-art-nft/#fn2" id="fnref2">[2]</a></sup>.</p>
<p>In fact, a whole category of digital picture frame products now exist to facilitate the display of digital artworks, with particular highlights including <a href="https://frm.fm/">Framed</a>, <a href="https://www.netgear.com/home/digital-art-canvas/">Meural</a> and Samsung's <a href="https://www.samsung.com/uk/lifestyle-tvs/the-frame/highlights/">The Frame</a>, the latter having the benefit of also being a television.</p>
<p>Some other digital artworks are created as installation projects. Techniques such as projection mapping can be used to visually enhance existing 3D space or to create unique live shows such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh85lplBqdU">Amon Tobin's ISAM</a>.</p>
<div style="padding:56.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;"><iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/43385747?dnt=1" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div><script src="https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js"></script>
<h2>NFT Mania</h2>
<p>Within this landscape NFT's<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/writing/irl-problem-digital-art-nft/#fn3" id="fnref3">[3]</a></sup> have emerged. First popularised by <a href="https://www.cryptokitties.co/">CryptoKitties</a>, a game centered around digital collectibles, with the NFT acting as proof of ownership of any given Kitty in the game. Uses of these NFT's have evolved, with recent applications allowing folks to <a href="https://v.cent.co/">buy and sell Tweets</a>, <a href="https://superrare.co/">sell digital artwork</a>, <a href="https://decentraland.org/">explore a virtual world</a> and much more.</p>
<p>Other applications of the technology unfortunately take a much more liberal attitude towards the concept of ownership. <a href="https://tokenizedtweets.com/">Tokenized Tweets</a> allows <em>anyone</em> to lay claim to a Tweet you've posted. Alongside platforms that make no effort to prove ownership of artworks for sale, artists are waking up to find that their digital artworks are being <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/12/non-fungible-tokens-revolutionising-art-world-theft">sold by fraudsters</a> to unwitting victims.</p>
<p>What happens to these tokens after they have been fraudulently sold is anyone's guess. Artists will certainly struggle to obtain ownership if the new owner doesn't wish to part ways with it and the decentralised nature of the network makes it hard to track down either the fraudster or the victim.</p>
<p>This comes hot on the heals of what feels like mania. This week, an NFT artwork by Beeple<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/writing/irl-problem-digital-art-nft/#fn4" id="fnref4">[4]</a></sup> <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/11/beeples-69-million-nft-sale-marks-a-potentially-transformative-moment-for-the-art-world/">sold at auction</a> for sixty nine million dollars and everyone is desperate to get their share of the action, leading to more fraud in the system.</p>
<p>Other artists are refusing to partake in the mania, citing <a href="https://joanielemercier.com/the-problem-of-cryptoart/">environmental concerns</a> with the underlying technology. Transactions made through the Ethereum wallet of Beeple are responsible for 78,306 kilograms of CO2 emissions<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/writing/irl-problem-digital-art-nft/#fn5" id="fnref5">[5]</a></sup> alone, equivalent to the average yearly carbon footprint of six and a half adults in the UK<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/writing/irl-problem-digital-art-nft/#fn6" id="fnref6">[6]</a></sup>.</p>
<p>Without adequate governance by marketplaces, NFT's will quickly become a poison chalice.</p>
<p>Fraud has always been present in the art world, but never before has it been so easy to commit fraud at this scale and with this much potential reward. Marketplaces are failing in their duty to protect artists and their clients, letting fraudsters run amok on their platforms.</p>
<p>Blockchains are pivoting towards a <a href="https://everestpipkin.medium.com/but-the-environmental-issues-with-cryptoart-1128ef72e6a3">proof of stake</a> model instead of a proof of work model, this will drastically reduce carbon emissions but there is still no clear timeline in sight for Ethereum, the biggest blockchain for NFT's.</p>
<p>It's clear that artists need to find a way to sell digital artworks in a way which is rewarding both to themselves and to people looking to collect or experience these artworks, but it appears clear that as it stands, NFT's are a failed experiment.</p>
<h2>What Can be Done?</h2>
<p>The answer, for artists, is not an easy one. NFT technology is promising, but it appears to be but one medium among many, and in many ways inferior to other methods of selling and buying art.</p>
<p><em>Don't believe the hype</em>.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Barrat had previously written a GAN to generate painting-like images. The code was then reused by three French students and the resulting work sold at Auction by Christie's for $432,500. Barrat was not rewarded by either party for the work he did in developing this GAN. <a href="https://www.christies.com/features/A-collaboration-between-two-artists-one-human-one-a-machine-9332-1.aspx">https://www.christies.com/features/A-collaboration-between-two-artists-one-human-one-a-machine-9332-1.aspx</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/writing/irl-problem-digital-art-nft/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>If you really must, you can see the work here <a href="https://www.seditionart.com/damien-hirst/for_heavens_sake">https://www.seditionart.com/damien-hirst/for_heavens_sake</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/writing/irl-problem-digital-art-nft/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>NFT meaning Non Fungible Token, OpenSea have a fantastic guide explaining what they are and how they work from a technical perspective <a href="https://opensea.io/blog/guides/non-fungible-tokens/">https://opensea.io/blog/guides/non-fungible-tokens/</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/writing/irl-problem-digital-art-nft/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>Beeple himself is creating interesting physical artifacts to go alonside the ownership of these digital assets <a href="https://decrypt.co/50922/beeple-ethereum-nft-art-sale">https://decrypt.co/50922/beeple-ethereum-nft-art-sale</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/writing/irl-problem-digital-art-nft/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn5" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://carbon.fyi/?address=0xc6b0562605D35eE710138402B878ffe6F2E23807">https://carbon.fyi/?address=0xc6b0562605D35eE710138402B878ffe6F2E23807</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/writing/irl-problem-digital-art-nft/#fnref5" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn6" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://www.pawprint.eco/eco-blog/average-carbon-footprint-uk">https://www.pawprint.eco/eco-blog/average-carbon-footprint-uk</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/writing/irl-problem-digital-art-nft/#fnref6" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
What do NFT's Mean for Digital Art?
2021-03-05T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/nfts-digital-art/
<p>NFT's have been a hot topic in the art space ever since <a href="https://www.cryptokitties.co/">CryptoKitties</a> popularised the concept in 2017, but as usual, there's more than meets the eye on the topic.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If the NFT-backed art market is just a kind of art version of sports memorabilia, though, itâs also something kind of profound, an opportunity to think through what a different and more equitable art market would be like. For example, while she has not minted an NFT yet due to environmental questions, Sara Ludy has used the NFT as an opportunity to develop a new contract with her gallery that is more supportive of the galleryâs staff. Likewise, much has been made of the potential for smart contracts to offer automated resale rights for artists to benefit from secondary market sales, although bad faith actors can find ways around these just as they can in the traditional art world. Cryptocurrency is not a prerequisite for these ways of working, but in some way, it does open up a conceptual space that seems to prompt this type of thinking.</p>
</blockquote>
The problem of CryptoArt
2021-02-21T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/problem-cryptoart-emissions/
<p>Art published on the blockchain has been pretty popular lately, but there's a very real environmental cost to that work. Joanie Lemercier, artist and activist breaks down the ecological impact of publishing a piece of art on the blockchain.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Understanding that the information was not available, I reached out to Offsetra, a carbon offset company familiar with the impact of blockchain technologies. We went through the details of transactions. It turns out that the 53 edition emitted about 80kg of CO2 each, and worst, every resale by collectors continues today to increase that impact.</p>
</blockquote>
What Tech Calls Thinking
2021-02-14T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/what-tech-calls-thinking/
<p>This is another book by FSGO x Logic, along with <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/subprime-attention-crisis">Subprime Attention Crisis</a>, and a few others sitting in my to-read pile.</p>
<p>Adrian Daub break down common Silicon Valley intellectual golden geese, the college dropout, failure, the idea of the tech <em>genius</em>, disruption and more. These concepts are explored and linked to Silicon Valley leaders like Mark Zuckerberg, Elizabeth Holmes (of Theranos infamy), Peter Thiel and more. There are some pretty spectacular takedowns of common SV truisms, showing just how shallow core tenets of SV thought leadership tend to be.</p>
Hound of the Sea
2021-02-14T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/hound-of-the-sea/
<p>Another surfer biography, which seemed interesting after reading <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/barbarian-days">Barbarian Days</a> earlier this year.</p>
<p>You've probably seen photos of Garrett McNamara over the years, usually seen surfing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58a9xYOweU8">building-sized waves</a> or being towed behind a jet-ski.</p>
<p>This book leans towards the spiritual which isn't my particular cup of tea but you can see how, after his wild childhood, McNamara would end up that way.</p>
<p><em>Hound of the Sea</em> is a great window into the mind of a surfer who's always looking for the next big wave. Fascinating at turns but perhaps less interesting in its single minded pursuit compared with Barbarian Days.</p>
The Death of the Artist
2021-02-07T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-death-of-the-artist/
<p>Believe it or not I graduated university with an art degree. Okay, so it was Digital Art as opposed to Fine Art, Art History or something more traditional, but an art degree nevertheless. I realised, probably during my second year that art wasn't the career path I wanted, but it remains a more than passing interest of mine. I like to think I support artists by buying photos, buying books, getting tattooed, etc.</p>
<p><em>The Death of the Artist</em> is a really interesting read. Art has simultaneously never been so accessible and so poor in quality. We've all been told we can write a book, or we can produce a song. You just need to buy a new Mac, or pay for some classes. It's so easy, <em>anyone can do it</em>. But that's not true. And we're paying for it with tens of millions of hours of mediocre music on Spotify, hundreds of thousands of books that are barely worth reading on Kindle and endless reruns and remakes of staid movies.</p>
<p>It doesn't have to be that way, but first, we need to get people paying for art again. That means buying music rather than subscribing to Spotify<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-death-of-the-artist/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup>, buying books from shops other than Amazon, it means supporting visual artists by buying their art and going to watch that interesting arthouse movie. At this point you're probably thinking this is all way too expensive, and it is. The death of the middle class is the death of the working artist. To fix the art world we need to fix income inequality. Not an easy fight, by any means, but one that's hard to argue against<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-death-of-the-artist/#fn2" id="fnref2">[2]</a></sup>.</p>
<p>Absolutely worth reading.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>The money you pay for Spotify doesn't go to the artists you listen to, it <a href="https://www.theringer.com/tech/2019/1/16/18184314/spotify-music-streaming-service-royalty-payout-model">goes to the popular artists</a> on Spotify in general. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-death-of-the-artist/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Unless you're already a multi-millionaire. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-death-of-the-artist/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
RĂ©flexions sur la violence
2021-01-24T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/reflexions-sur-la-violence/
<p>I'm trying to read more books in French this year, so I've started with RĂ©flexions sur la violence (In English, Reflections on Violence) by Georges Sorel, a French historian, political theorist, journalist and more.</p>
<p>Sorel was a Marxist, who theorised that political revolution must happen through the proletariat using violence to bring about syndicalism. Truth be told given my lack of French in recent years I need to read this again to properly engage with the material.</p>
<p>One thing that stood out to me was a section in the opening letter<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/reflexions-sur-la-violence/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup> to Daniel Halevy on the dangerous nature of unfettered optimism.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If he possesses an exalted temperament, and if unhappily he finds himself armed with great power, permitting him to realise the ideal he has fashioned, the optimist may lead his country into the worst disasters. He is not long in finding out that social transformations are not brought about with the ease that he had counted on; he then supposes that this is the fault of his contemporaries, instead of explaining what actually happens by historical necessities; he is tempted to get rid of people whose obstinacy seems to him to be so dangerous to the happiness of all. During the Terror, the men who spilt most blood were precisely those who had the greatest desire to let their equals enjoy the golden age they had dreamt of, and who had the most sympathy with human wretchedness: optimists, idealists, and sensitive men, the greater desire they had for universal happiness the more inexorable they showed themselves.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Reflections_on_Violence/Letter_to_Daniel_Halevy">https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Reflections_on_Violence/Letter_to_Daniel_Halevy</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/reflexions-sur-la-violence/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
What Value Does an Artist Have?
2021-01-18T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/what-value-does-an-artist-have/
<p>I was shocked and saddened yesterday to see <a href="https://www.instagram.com/benoit_paille/">Benoit Paillé on Instagram</a> livestreaming his campervan, upside down in a snowy ditch somewhere in the boonies near New Brunswick, Canada.</p>
<p>That van was Benoit's home and his workshop. He lost both of those in the crash, along with the cameras he uses to make his living and the printer he uses to sell prints to customers.</p>
<p>Seeing that bought some things to light in my mind that I suppose I've been slow to catch on.</p>
<p>It feels ghoulish liking and commenting on Instagram posts showing someone in a deep state of loss and vulnerability, but that's what the we have to do to get past the algorithms created by Big Tech.</p>
<p>Apparently the guys (and they're all guys) running these companies are the new rockstars. But all they're doing is leading the charge in the increasing demise of the middle class. 2020 shows <a href="https://www.profgalloway.com/the-great-grift">the stark contrast</a> between the haves and the have-notes.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The remaining $2.5 trillion came via mostly forgivable loans and handouts to businesses. But donât let the name âpaycheck protection programâ fool you â recipients were not required to actually protect any paychecks. The final tally is about $1 trillion in direct aid to those who truly needed it, $1 trillion to the actual pandemic response ⊠and a $3 trillion wealth transfer to the rich and powerful. Weâre calling it: The Great Grift.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The situation here in the UK is no different. The Tory government has handed out over ÂŁ8bn in contracts <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/17/world/europe/britain-covid-contracts.html">to their friends and party sponsors</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The contracts that have been made public are only a part of the total. Citing the urgency of the pandemic, the government cast aside the usual transparency rules and awarded contracts worth billions of dollars without competitive bidding. To date, just over half of all of the contracts awarded in the first seven months remain concealed from the public, according to the National Audit Office, a watchdog agency.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And during all this, artists, like Benoit, now find themselves unable to work, in a society where, through cronyism and market manipulation millions of people find their paychecks only decreasing year after year.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/how-mckinsey-destroyed-middle-class/605878/">middle class is being destroyed</a> and the result is an increasing transfer of wealth to mega-corps controlled by the ultra-wealthy. Why buy music from an artist when you can subscribe (or better yet, listen to music free) on Spotify? Why buy an original artwork when you can simply buy some mass-produced tat from Zara or H&M?</p>
<p>Seeing the photos and video that Benoit posted yesterday showed me we can't carry on with the way things are. If you can spare something, <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/aidez-benoit-paill-travers-sa-tragdie">help Benoit get back on his feet</a>, buy some music from an indie artist on <a href="https://bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp</a>, <a href="https://www.artfinder.com/#/">buy some original art</a> from an artist in your city.</p>
<p>Art is valuable and important and as a society we need to do better in enabling brilliant people to make amazing work.</p>
Weapons of Math Destruction
2021-01-11T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/weapons-of-math-destruction/
<p>Algorithms rules our lives in a number of ways. Credit scores determine our ability to get financing, advertising is targeted at us to exploit our financial situations, the homeless are kept homeless, poor neighbourhoods are over-policed, teachers lose their jobs through opaque performance measurement systems and insurance increasingly tries to penetrate our private lives.</p>
<p>Cathy O'Neil's <em>Weapons of Math Destruction</em> is an expose of the harmful WMD's that affect us in our day-to-day life. Predominantly exploiting the poor and the disenfranchised, they're the worst examples of statistics and data-science used without thought about the people behind the numbers.</p>
<p>These algorithms serve only to reinforce poor decision making through bad statistics. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/trustworthy-online-controlled-experiments"><em>Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments</em></a> by Kohavi <em>et al</em> raises the importance of what they call <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/guardrail-metrics-ab-tests-ronny-kohavi/">"guardrail metrics"</a>, something which is painfully absent from WMD's, either through design or lack of care, attention or experience by the developers of WMD's.</p>
<p>Forecasting is an inexact science, as anyone who paid attention to the recent US elections could tell you. But WMD's all attempt to produce forecasts, harming real people in the process.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Big Data processes codify the past. They do not invent the future. Doing that requires moral imagination, and thatâs something only humans can provide. We have to explicitly embed better values into our algorithms, creating Big Data models that follow our ethical lead. Sometimes that will mean putting fairness ahead of profit.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A fantastic book, I only keep this one off my recommendations because you're likely to be familiar with the examples and therefore the problem if you've paid attention to data-related news over the last half decade.</p>
Sideloading Books on Kindle with Goodreads Integration
2021-01-10T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/sideloading-books-kindle-goodreads-integration/
<p>I buy a lot of ebooks from Games Workshop's independent publishing arm, <a href="https://www.blacklibrary.com/">Black Library</a> and frequently find myself needing to load these ebooks onto my kindle. This can be quite a pain in the arse at times, particularly if you want the integration with Goodreads to work.</p>
<p>Thanks to a super helpful <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/kindle/comments/3v8du1/sideloaded_books_cant_integrate_with_goodreads_on/cxltoja/">post on Reddit</a>, I found a useful method you can use to easily sideload books while also making sure they integrate properly with Goodreads.</p>
<p>For the sake of posterity here's the process you need to follow, with images.</p>
<h2>What You'll Need</h2>
<p>You'll need a few things before we get started.</p>
<ol>
<li>The ebook you want to transfer over to your device, in .epub format</li>
<li>A kindle, connected to your PC via USB</li>
<li><a href="https://calibre-ebook.com/">Calibre</a> installed on the same PC</li>
</ol>
<p>The first thing you'll want to do is launch Calibre and install a plugin called Quality Check. You can do this by navigating to <code>Preferences -> Get plug-ins to enhance Calibre</code> and searching for "Quality Check" in the User Plug-ins window. Follow the instructions to install the plugin then restart Calibre.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125428">Quality Check</a> will allow you to easily find and update metadata for your installed books, such as finding Amazon ASIN numbers and Goodreads ID's.</p>
<h2>How to do it</h2>
<p>Once you're setup and ready to go, the process is quite simple.</p>
<p>First, you'll want to add your books to Calibre. You can do this by dragging the files in or by clicking <code>Add books</code> in the navigation.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Calibre-1.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Calibre-1.png" alt="Books added to Calibre" /></a></p>
<p>Now your books have been added you'll see that they're missing lots of metadata. In the screenshot above I've just added Scions of the Emperor, Dawn of Fire and Sons of the Emperor.</p>
<p>Next, select the book(s) you want to convert and click <code>Convert books</code>. Make sure "Output format" is set to <strong>AZW3</strong>. You can do this individually or in bulk.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Calibre-2.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Calibre-2.png" alt="Converting books to AWZ3" /></a></p>
<p>Converting the books should take a few seconds per book but may take a while if you're converting a large library.</p>
<p>Now select the newly converted books and click <code>Edit metadata -> Download metadata and covers</code>. Follow the instructions from there.</p>
<p>At this stage you may get an error informing you that metadata or covers failed to download, we'll have to fix this manually. Instructions for this can be found <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/sideloading-books-kindle-goodreads-integration/#if-an-error-occurs">at the bottom of this article</a>.</p>
<p>Once the books are converted, make sure they're still selected and click <code>Quality Check -> Fix -> Fix ASIN for Kindle Fire</code> in the navigation.</p>
<p>Almost there! All that's left is to select your books and send them to you Kindle. Ensure this is plugged in and set to USB Drive Mode, then select the book(s) you want to transfer and in the main navigation click <code>Send to device -> Send specific format to -> Main memory</code>. Select the AZW3 files and hit OK.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Calibre-6.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Calibre-6.png" alt="Sending to Kindle" /></a></p>
<p>The books should now be sent to your Kindle device.</p>
<p>You can now disconnect your Kindle and check the files are there. After you open a book, you should now also be able to use the Goodreads functionality built into the Goodreads device.</p>
<p>Enjoy your new book!</p>
<hr />
<h2>If an Error Occurs<a name="if-an-error-occurs"></a></h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Calibre-3.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Calibre-3.png" alt="Calibre metadata error" /></a></p>
<p>If an error occurs when attempting to download metadata it's not the end of the world.</p>
<p>What you'll need to do is manually enter the ASIN, you can find this on the product page and in the URL of the product on an Amazon page.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Amazon-ASIN.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Amazon-ASIN.png" alt="Finding an Amazon ASIN" /></a></p>
<p>Copy this ID, return to Calibre, select your book again and click <code>Edit metadata -> Edit metadata individually</code>. In the Ids form field, type "amazon:" followed by the ASIN. In my case this will look like <code>amazon:B07NY9GPYY</code>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Calibre-4.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Calibre-4.png" alt="Manually fixing metadata" /></a></p>
<p>Hit OK and try again to download metadata.</p>
<p>If this fails again, you will need to also add the ISBN. This can be found on <a href="https://isbnsearch.org/">ISBN Search</a>. Edit the metadata again and add the ISBN-13 for your book to the Id's field.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Calibre-5.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Calibre-5.png" alt="Adding an ISBN" /></a></p>
<p>Hit OK again and then try again to download metadata. This should now work. If it does, continue with the original instructions.</p>
Subprime Attention Crisis
2021-01-06T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/subprime-attention-crisis/
<p>This is a short book, but it doesn't mince it's words and lays a compelling case that digital programmatic advertising is in a cataclysmic bubble.</p>
<p>For better or worse, the modern internet was built off the back of advertising. We rely on advertising subsidised services every day and a violent bursting of the bubble could well cause serious collateral damage.</p>
<p>Digital advertising is directly responsible for the business models used by Facebook, Twitter, <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/okr-youtube-unintended-consequences">YouTube</a> and for the clickbait-ification of news content. It can be linked, without a shadow of a doubt to the rise of violent extremism that's currently plaguing Western society that's directly led to the deaths of innocent people around the world.</p>
<p>There's hope, though. Increasing awareness of the side-effects of advertising are <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism">readily apparent</a> and I hope marketers are starting to wake up and realise that the opaque systems they use are full of <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketers-addicted-bad-data">garbage data</a>, if not <a href="https://www.mql.fm/002-60-million-60-billion-ad-fraud-question-augustine-fou">outright fraud</a>.</p>
<p>It's inexcusable that marketers are not aware of the risks associated with where and how they choose to allocate their budgets. If you work in marketing, please, please, <em>please</em> read this book.</p>
Barbarian Days
2021-01-04T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/barbarian-days/
<p>I really, really enjoyed <em>Barbarian Days</em>. William Finnegan has lived the sort of life that many people can only dream about. He's regularly surfed 10+ft waves for well over 40 years, travelled the world working hand to mouth and has experienced more in a lifetime than many of us will ever do and see.</p>
<p><em>William Finnegan</em> is an addict. his life for decades revolved entirely around surfing and this addition took him across the world surfing in Hawaii, Indonesia, Fiji, Australia, South Africa, Madeira and more. There's also a distinct sense of growing maturity in the book, as Finnegan travels and experiences poverty and inequality first-hand, reaching a crescendo when he reaches apartheid ridden South Africa and takes up a job teaching black students.</p>
<p>Finnegan was lucky, in a number of ways. He grew up at a time where travel was relatively affordable, when income disparity wasn't what it is today and kitchen and manual labour jobs paid a decent wage, at least enough to get by on. Critically, this was a time before the internet, communication was neither cheap nor instantaneous. There was still a sense of etiquette within the surf community, who tried keeping their waves private to avoid crowds turning up.</p>
<p>All this has changed now, and I don't think we'll ever see the like again. Finnegan laments the commercialisation of the sport, <a href="https://www.tavarua.com/">Taravua</a> being turned into a resort and the wave he discovered being destroyed by building projects to attract tourists. There's a similar situation in Madeira, where development of <a href="https://www.savethewaves.org/jardim-do-mar-madeira/">Jardim do Mar</a> turned the waves from a surfing mecca to something entirely too dangerous to attempt.</p>
<p>I was watching the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJWIPRvtAHk">Andy Irons documentary</a> on AP last night and was struck by how much things have changed in the surfing world from how Finnegan portrays it to the multi-billion dollar industry it is today. There's certainly an element of sadness to that.</p>
<p>After more than a year stuck in the UK, unable to travel. You can do a lot worse than live vicariously through Finnegan's story.</p>
Writing Copy for Landing Pages
2021-01-03T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/writing-copy-landing-pages/
<p>A great guide from the folks at Stripe for effective landing page copy.</p>
<p>Some total non-brainers in there but they bear repeating.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Landing pages often say âwe offerâ or âour solution,â which focuses on the wrong thingâyour company, not your customers. Go through each sentence in your copy and rewrite it to address your customers. One way to do this is to begin with the word âyou.â Another tip is to start your sentence with a verb. Focusing on them nearly guarantees that your copy will addressâand speak toâyour visitor.</p>
</blockquote>
My Favourite Books of 2020
2021-01-01T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/2020-favourite-books/
<p>2020 was a good year for reading, what with being stuck inside for the overwhelming majority of it.</p>
<p>According to Goodreads I read sixty eight books in the year making up some twenty two and a half thousand pages. It's quite a lot but I've been fortunate enough to have the time for it.</p>
<p>I read some real standouts this year, three of which I think everyone should read. Worthy of note is the fact that all three were written by women. Historically I typically find myself reading books written primarily by men, I'm trying to do better. You probably should too.</p>
<p>These three are in alphabetical order, they're all worth your time, I can't rate one above any other.</p>
<h2>The Age of Surveillance Capitalism</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism"><img alt="The Age of Surveillance Capitalism book cover" src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/covers/the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism.jpg" style="width:100%; max-width:300px;" /></a></p>
<p>This is essential reading for anyone working in the spheres of data or technology, which these days is essentially everyone. In <em>The Age of Surveillance Capitalism</em> Shoshana Zuboff argues that modern tech companies have overstepped their boundaries and are now operating as surveillance platforms with the ultimate goal of influencing our behaviour in the manner of a Skinner Box. It's written with prose that can be quite hard to read if you don't have a background reading non-stem works, but don't let that put you off.</p>
<p>There is some hope on the horizon, however, as we're starting to see legislators around the world waking up to this Faustian bargain we seem to have struck with tech companies in a bid to become more connected with one another.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism">Full post</a></p>
<h2>Invisible Women</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/invisible-women"><img alt="Invisible Women book cover" src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/covers/invisible-women.jpg" style="width:100%; max-width:300px;" /></a></p>
<p>We live in a world designed for men. Products are designed and build according to the <em>average man</em>. Safety standards are designed around the biology and size of the average man. The result? A world in which women find discomfort in the products they're forced to use on a daily basis. A world in which women die, simply because they were not considered when designing safety standards.</p>
<p>This book highlights deep injustices that permeate our society. We all need to demand better.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/invisible-women">Full post</a></p>
<h2>No Logo</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/no-logo"><img alt="No Logo book cover" src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/covers/no-logo.jpg" style="width:100%; max-width:300px;" /></a></p>
<p>I wish I'd known Parry Malm when I was in my late teens so he could have recommended this book to me then. As it stands I only got to discover this early 00's classic this year. But what a classic it is.</p>
<p><em>Naomi Klein</em> holds no punches in this no-bullshit critique of capitalism and globalisation and the deep injustices perpetrated as a result of Western consumerism. Sadly, it feels like very little has changed. Maybe if more people were aware of this book that wouldn't be the case. Read it.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/no-logo">Full post</a></p>
<h2>Worthy Mentions</h2>
<p>There were some other noteworthy titles I think folks should read. These ones won't be for everyone but I highly recommend them if they're applicable for your work or they're in a sphere that covers your interests.</p>
<h3>Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments</h3>
<p>This is <em>the</em> bible for anyone working on experimentation programs (think A/B testing and growing in sophistication from there) online. Read it, make frequent notes. Read it again.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/trustworthy-online-controlled-experiments">Full post</a></p>
<h3>Crashed</h3>
<p><em>Adam Tooze</em> takes you on a rich and massively detailed tour of the financial crisis and crash of '07-08, the aftershocks across Europe, Ukraine and more culminating in the austerity measures that led to the rise of populism we find ourselves in today.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/crashed">Full post</a></p>
<h3>Range</h3>
<p>It's often claimed that we need to specialise in a given subject to obtain success and mastery. <em>Range</em> argues the opposite. We're at our most creative and most effective when we possess a broad depth of knowledge.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/range">Full post</a></p>
<h3>Good Strategy/Bad Strategy</h3>
<p>I started the year reading a bunch of books on strategy. Most were glorified war-porn retelling stories and anecdotes of ancient wars. Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stands above the crowd in the clarity of the message it delivers. Don't waste your time on other strategy books.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/good-strategy-bad-strategy">Full post</a></p>
<hr />
<p>Enough about me, what were your best reads of the year?</p>
Tristes Tropiques
2020-12-31T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/tristes-tropiques/
<p>This is the first book I've read in French in a long time and subsequently felt much harder to read than it should have. I'm not one for new year's resolutions but this is something I intend to work on next year. There's no excuse for letting my mother tongue slip.</p>
<p>Claude LĂ©vi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist who spent months living with the natives in the jungles of Brazil. <em>Tristes Tropiques</em> eddies and whorls though stories of native life, juxtaposed with tales of life in Europe, India and the Caribbean. It's at turns critical of modern life while comparing it to what we might consider <em>primitive</em>, with sharp critiques of colonialism in India at the hands of the British.</p>
<p>Reading it I'm left questioning whether, culturally, modern society is any improvement on what we consider to be primitive.</p>
<p>A fantastic book to end the year on.</p>
APIs All the Way Down
2020-12-27T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/apis-all-the-way-down/
<p>An excellent breakdown of API-first companies by Packy McCormick.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Stripe x Shopify announcement woke me up, though, and led me down a rabbit hole to places both familiar and new, to the question of what good strategy looks like on the internet and why most companies should just be API Frankensteins with one main point of differentiation. Like the turtles, modern software is APIs all the way down.</p>
</blockquote>
Building a Personal Research Library
2020-12-22T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/building-personal-research-library/
<p>In an excellent post by Steph Smith, titled <a href="https://blog.stephsmith.io/learning-to-write-with-confidence/">Writing is Thinking: Learning to Write with Confidence</a>, she describes what she calls the Thinking and Writing Cycle as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Writing and thinking are two peas in a powerful pod. Critical thinking leads to good writing, which leads to clearer thinking, and so on. By improving your writing, you are also improving your ability to think and vice versa.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Earlier this year <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/zettlr-notes-zettlekasten.html">I started using a note taking app</a> called <a href="https://www.zettlr.com/">Zettlr</a> to write notes for all manner of things. I use it to take down notes for projects I'm working on, software I'm using, books I'm reading, articles I've read online and lots more. I also, as you can guess, have started using it to improve what I suppose can be called my capacity for critical thinking. It's been great.</p>
<p>Going hand-in-hand with writing is reading, and just like Zettlr, I've found a great open source tool that I use to keep track of what I've read<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/building-personal-research-library/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup>, when. That tool is <a href="https://www.zotero.org/">Zotero</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Zotero.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Zotero.png" alt="Zotero" /></a></p>
<p>Zotero lets you build a personal library of books, articles, web pages, PDF's and more with just a few clicks, and can be synced with an online account for access across multiple devices (including of any PDF you might have chosen to upload).</p>
<p>You can use <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier">DOI links</a> to import an article into your library with tons of useful metadata such as access dates, authors, etc.</p>
<p>There's also a useful Chrome browser extension that lets you easily bookmark web pages for future referencing.</p>
<p>There are a whole host of features for academic writing, but those are less useful for me. If you do need to keep track of a bibliography for referencing purposes though Zotero is perfect, and <a href="https://docs.zettlr.com/en/academic/citations/">works incredibly well with Zettlr</a>.</p>
<p>With many of us needing to continue to work from home, and with employers adapting to environments in which large numbers of staff may well continue to work from home, high quality asynchronous communication becomes the de-facto gold standard.</p>
<p>We all need to spend time improving the quality of our non-verbal communication. In that scenario, taking up a writing habit can only be a good thing, and building a personal research library has to be encouraged to provoke the Thinking and Writing Cycle.</p>
<p>If you're a marketer like me, I would highly recommend spending some time getting comfortable with an RSS reader like Feedly and subscribing <a href="https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/">to</a> <a href="https://cxl.com/blog">great</a> <a href="https://wordtothewise.com/blog">websites</a>. I also highly recommend keeping tabs on the following journals.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/loi/mrja?ai=2b4&mi=ehikzz&af=R">Journal of Marketing Research</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-interactive-marketing">Journal of Interactive Marketing</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/international-journal-of-research-in-marketing">International Journal of Research in Marketing</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.springer.com/journal/11747">Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.springer.com/journal/11129">Quantitative Marketing and Economics</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Building a reading habit is one of the best things to do, for your career and for your own personal development.</p>
<p>Read more. Document what you write. Write about it.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Specifically referring to websites and academic articles here. While you can keep tabs of books you've read in Zotero I primarily use <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/86396018-jacques-corby-tuech">Goodreads</a> for that. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/building-personal-research-library/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Do Offline and Online Go Hand in Hand? Cross-Channel and Synergy Effects of Direct Mailing and Display Advertising
2020-12-22T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/display-advertising-direct-mail-synergy/
<p>Seems like a no-brainer but sometimes it's important to reasses what we think we know. This study is a super interesting read, even if all it does is confirm thoughts you already had.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In addition to a positive sales effect, direct mailing significantly influences the upper and middle stages of the purchase funnel, in support of cross-channel effects of direct mailing on consumersâ online search and clicking behavior.</p>
</blockquote>
Starting a Podcast
2020-12-14T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/starting-a-podcast/
<p>So I started a <a href="https://www.mql.fm/">podcast</a>. And actually, I think this is Elliot's fault because I really enjoyed making an appearance on <a href="https://www.emailtalk.fm/episodes/06-privacy-round-table-w-dylan-smith-jacques-corby-tuech-jay-oram">emailtalk</a>. Or maybe I'm just a bit vain and ended up liking the sound of my own voice too much. I guess time will tell.</p>
<p>I just released Episode 2 last Friday so now seems like a good time to reflect a little on the journey and how I've put this together. I suspect I'm probably doing a lot wrong but this seems to be working for now<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/starting-a-podcast/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup>.</p>
<h2>The Recording Setup</h2>
<p>I spent longer than I care to admit geeking out on microphone trivia, comparing XLR vs USB options, condenser vs dynamic and all that other junk. Eventually I realised I was probably overthinking this stuff so picked up an <a href="https://www.elgato.com/en/wave-3">Elgato Wave 3</a> with the optional <a href="https://www.elgato.com/en/wave-pop-filter">pop filter</a>. USB definitely seemed like the way to go, I've got too much shit on my desk already to want to faff about with audio interfaces and a million more cables.</p>
<p>I could just as easily have gone with a classic Yeti or the Rode NT-USB. I doubt it'd have made any difference.</p>
<p>Right now the mic is sat on my desk so I have to be careful not to bash the desk too much when recording. I'll probably buy an arm at some point but this works for now.</p>
<p>I'm currently using the free version of Zoom to record audio, it lets me record a separate audio track per participant which gets handy in editing. There's a shit load of options here, but it's hard to argue with free. Particularly when it's a ubiquitous tool that guests are likely to be comfortable with.</p>
<p>An added side bonus is my audio now sounds great on work calls, so I guess that's a positive side effect to buying this thing? đ€·ââïž</p>
<h2>Editing</h2>
<p>I fucking hate audio editing. It's tedious as shit, and I suck at it. Fortunately I discovered <a href="https://www.descript.com/podcasting">Descript</a> via their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl9wqNe5J8U">rad product video</a> and it's an absolute life-saver. It automatically transcribes the recordings and lets me edit the audio by manipulating the transcript (ie deleting a word to delete that word in the recording). $30 a month is <em>not cheap</em> but it's fucking great and I'd rather pay these guys than give Adobe any more money.</p>
<p>The fact that I get a transcript is icing on the cake.</p>
<p>I bought a $9 jingle from Envato to act as an opening track. I've not got much more to say on that front. It does the job.</p>
<h2>Hosting</h2>
<p>Okay so now I've recorded and edited a podcast. I need to put it online and distribute it.</p>
<p>I'm still not 100% on this one. After looking at a bunch of options I narrowed it to wanting this feature-set:</p>
<ul>
<li>Cheap<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/starting-a-podcast/#fn2" id="fnref2">[2]</a></sup>, ideally under a tenner a month</li>
<li>Allows me to upload 80+ MB recordings (ie an hour of audio)</li>
<li>decent embeddable player I can use on my own site</li>
<li>Easy UI I can use to sync the feed to Spotify/Apple/whatever</li>
</ul>
<p>Turns out the first two don't tend to play well together, most cheap or free options have fairly limited options when it comes to the size of the files they'll host. <a href="https://www.pinecast.com/">Pinecast</a> looked great but their embedded player looks like shit and functions even worse. <a href="https://www.captivate.fm/">Captivate</a> looks great but costs ÂŁ19 per month. Fuck that.</p>
<p>Eventually I found <a href="https://redcircle.com/">RedCircle</a>, it costs ÂŁ0, lets me upload files up to 200MB and has a decent audio player. Sold.</p>
<p>Hah, yeah. Not so fast. Turns out they embed Google Analytics and Facebook tracking in their player without consent. I complained so now they tell people they do this but they've not removed the tracking yet. This pissed me off.</p>
<p>I'm still on RedCircle, but I'm using a simple <code><audio></code> tag on my site to embed the audio at the moment which is pretty naff.</p>
<p><em>Why the fuck do companies think it's okay to track visitors to my site without my or my visitor's consent?</em></p>
<h2>Marketing</h2>
<p>I built a <a href="https://www.mql.fm/">super simple site</a> using Jekyll, it's hosted for free on <a href="https://www.netlify.com/">Netlify</a>.</p>
<p>I don't have any tracking on the website. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketers-addicted-bad-data">Fuck that</a>.</p>
<p>The transcripts I get out of Descript are ace as I can use them for posts on the site, which is great for SEO and accessibility friendly. An hour of audio seems to be working out to about ~11k words. That's quite a lot. Another reason to be thankful for Descript I guess.</p>
<p>I've got a form on the site that's slowly collecting email addresses, I've not yet plugged it into an ESP but there are a few options I might use. I currently use <a href="https://convertkit.com/">ConvertKit</a> for this website so I'll probably use that again. It's okay.</p>
<p>I've posted on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/marketingops_talking-strategy-with-jenna-tiffany-activity-6740207867195916288-oZQx">social</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/iamacyborg/status/1337337195208847362">media</a> when a new episode goes live.</p>
<p>RedCircle makes it easy to distribute the podcast to platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts so I made sure I'm doing that to try capture some earballs that way.</p>
<p>It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that for a project like this.</p>
<h2>Cost Breakdown</h2>
<p>The mic cost me ÂŁ159.95, the optional pop filter cost me an extra ÂŁ26.48.</p>
<p>I'm paying nothing for Zoom, it lets me record multi-track audio and have hour+ long calls with a single guest for free.</p>
<p>Descript runs at $30 per month but I can do a big chunk of editing in a couple months, switch off the sub then turn it back on when I've got 2+ ready to edit.</p>
<p>The website is using open source software and is hosted for free.</p>
<p>Marketing costs are currently ÂŁ0. That might go up if the email list grows but that won't be for a little while yet.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Setting this up was surprisingly easy once I stopped overthinking decisions like hosting or what kind of mic to use. There's piles and piles of articles everywhere that get into as much geeky detail into every aspect of this thing that you could want, but you only need a surface level of understanding to get started.</p>
<p>People I've reached out to have been open to appearing on the podcast which has been ace and it's proven to be a great way to have chats with really fucking smart people that I wouldn't normally get the opportunity to speak with.</p>
<p>For that last point alone it's been worth it.</p>
<p>Do me a favour? Give <a href="https://www.mql.fm/">an episode a listen</a> and <a href="mailto:jacquescorbytuech@gmail.com">shoot me an email</a> to let me know what you think?</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Famous last words... <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/starting-a-podcast/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>I don't want to spend a ton of money on what might just be a short flight of fancy. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/starting-a-podcast/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Crashed
2020-12-12T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/crashed/
<p>Crashed explains in deep and sometimes excruciating detail the financial crash of 2008, the resultant near-implosion of the Eurozone, the 2013 Ukraine crisis, the Chinese stock market slump of 2015 and how the political decisions of the time came to create the deeply populist world we currently find ourselves in.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The contention of this book is that the speakers at the UN in September 2008 were right. The financial crisis and the economic, political and geopolitical responses to that crisis are essential to understanding the changing face of the world today.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Adam Tooze makes an exceptional effort to explain the economic machinations that led to both the initial financial crisis and the economic and political policies that were deployed to drag countries out of recession. Foremost of these was the highly controversial <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing">Quantitative Easing</a> and the opening of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank_liquidity_swap">swap lines</a> with various central banks. These were used to prop up and provide the liquidity that banks desperately needed to stay afloat.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The ferocity of the financial crisis in 2008 was met with a mobilization of state action without precedent in the history of capitalism. Never before outside wartime had states intervened on such a scale and with such speed. It was a devastating blow to the complacent belief in the great moderation, a shocking overturning of prevailing laissez-faire ideology. To mobilize trillions of dollars on the credit of the taxpayer to save banks from the consequences of their own folly and greed violated maxims of fairness and good government. But given the risk of contagion, how could states not act? Having done so, however, how could they ever go back to the idea that markets were efficient, self-regulating and best left to their own devices? It was a profound challenge to the basic idea that had guided economic government since the 1970s. It was all the more significant for the fact that the challenge came not from the outside. It was not motivated by some radical ideological turn to the Left or the Right.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For reasons explained in the booked, austerity was the political result of all this economic action, which in turn led to the rise of far-left and far-right populism.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A resurgent nationalism, defending sovereignty against the impositions of the crisis, would be one of the most powerful political responses to the crisis. This had both left- and right-wing variants. Both were at their most vocal in Greece, where the diktat of the troika awakened memories of occupation, civil war and dictatorship. On the Left it was commonplace in the demonstrations of 2010 and 2011 to associate Germanyâs veto over eurozone economic policy with Nazi imperialism. Meanwhile, Greeceâs own fascists paraded openly in the streets. The membership of the Golden Dawn party reveled in torch-lit processions, adorned with runic flags and shielded by heavily muscled storm troopers. Golden Dawners harassed and attacked leftists and non-European immigrants, while laying on soup kitchens, reserved, of course, only for hungry Greeks. In a textbook rerun of the 1930s, a comprehensive social and economic crisis provided the setting for a program of national racial community.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Financial inequality only got worse following the initial crash of '08, with the wealth and power becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As the recession of 2008â2009 receded, what came ever more to the fore was a tendency toward concentration and oligopoly that went far beyond Wall Street. One of the side effects of Bernankeâs QE policy of low interest rates was that it made it hugely attractive for companies to borrow to buy out their competitors. In three giant merger waves, cresting in 2000, 2006 and 2015, with the antitrust authorities looking on, American capitalism remade itself in a more concentrated and monopolistic mode. By 2013 profits were booming to an almost embarrassing extent. Even chronic loss makers, like the airlines, were now making money. But the really big returns were elsewhere. As Peter Orszag, Obamaâs former director of management and budget, now at Citigroup, and Jason Furman, serving as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, reported in a research paper, two thirds of the nonfinancial firms that had managed to achieve a return on invested capital of 45 percent or more between 2010 and 2014 âwere in either the health care or information technology sectors.â What allowed such gigantic profits and enormous salaries to be concentrated in these sectors were market power, IP protection and government-licensed pricing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Having read this, I'm left with more questions than answers.</p>
<p>The COVID crisis has led to huge capital injections the world over, creating huge accumulations of wealth for the mega-rich while the poor simply get furloughed or lose their jobs entirely. Reading this book I'm left with the distinct impression that the ship has sailed on Western power, and certainly with Brexit coming in under a month, for British power.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For many of the most fast-paced global transactions, it was London, not Wall Street, that was the location of choice. By 2007, 35 percent of the global turnover in foreign exchange, running at a staggering $1 trillion per day, was conducted between computer systems in the City of London. European banks were the biggest players in the business.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm not optimistic about the future of an independent Britain.</p>
Attribution Without Cookies
2020-12-05T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/attribution-without-cookies/
<p>A fantastic technical discussion with analytics experts that dives straight into some of the issues I raised in my piece on <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketers-addicted-bad-data">Marketers are Addicted to Bad Data</a>. A must-listen.</p>
Garbage In, Garbage Out
2020-11-28T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/garbage-in-garbage-out/
<p>It recently surfaced in a story by <a href="https://www.adexchanger.com/platforms/facebook-conversion-lift-measurement-issue-goes-undetected-for-12-months/">AdExchanger</a> and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-latest-error-shakes-advertisers-confidence-11606346927">The Wall Street Journal</a> that Facebook had, for <em><strong>a year</strong></em>, been feeding incorrect data to advertisers paying to display adverts across Facebook's network using their lift conversion tool.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Specifically, the bug was caused by a data pipeline migration in August of last year that affected the way in which certain impressions were logged into Facebookâs conversion lift systems.</p>
<p>As a result, Facebook undercounted the number of conversions from people who were exposed to impressions on Facebook apps.</p>
<p>In other words, Facebook miscalculated the number of sales that came from people that saw an ad, which is a key ratio necessary to measure incrementality, because itâs used to calculate other metrics, including conversion lift percentage, which is the difference in conversions between the people who did and didnât see ads during a test.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In finding and fixing this issue, <em>they also surfaced two other bugs affecting data quality for a period of a few months</em>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>During Facebookâs investigation into the original bug, it also came across and patched two additional, separate and, it says, âsmallerâ technical issues that affected conversion-based metrics for some lift tests.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This follows not long after LinkedIn fessed up to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/linkedin-finds-measurement-errors-that-inflated-video-and-ad-metrics-11605228577">their own measurement fuckup</a> that saw 418,000 advertisers served incorrect data over a period of <em><strong>two years</strong></em>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In a blog post, the Microsoft Corp.-owned company said its engineering team found and fixed two measurement issues in its ad products, which led to overreporting of video views and ad impressions on sponsored-content campaigns. The bugs affected more than 418,000 advertisers over the course of more than two years, it said.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I recently wrote about the <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketers-addicted-bad-data">problem marketers have with bad data</a> and their inability to recognise and understand the data they're being presented from opaque third parties. Not necessarily through any real fault of their own, I hasten to add.</p>
<p>These most recent examples are particular pernicious. Marketers rely on data from Facebook, LinkedIn and similar to optimise campaigns and to assign limited budget. In both cases, incorrect data could have, and probably <em>did have</em>, a tangible effect on how marketers allocated their budget. This lead to Facebook and LinkedIn directly profiting from these fuck-ups.</p>
<p>I can't say this enough, but marketers without a healthy degree of scepticism are going to fall victim to this more and more frequently. If you let garbage data define your media strategy, you'll get garbage results.</p>
Do Less, Convert More
2020-11-13T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/aa-testing/
<p>Testing is hard, particularly when AA tests can seem to give you results. This is great article from Davic Kadavy on common A/B testing pitfalls and how it's usually a lot harder to do than we think it is.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I spent hours pouring over articles, learning just how to run a reliable, significant A/B test, and I came to this conclusion: It Doesnât F*cking Matter.</p>
<p>To me, it doesnât matter, and to most budding businesses, it doesnât matter.</p>
</blockquote>
Marketers are Addicted to Bad Data
2020-11-07T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketers-addicted-bad-data/
<p>Modern marketing is all about data and however hard you might try, you can't spend any time around marketers online without <a href="https://blog.marketo.com/2013/11/prove-your-worth10-kpis-for-marketers.html">being</a> <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/paid-owned-earned-content/242075/">subjected</a> <a href="https://blogs.oracle.com/oracledatacloud/effectively-measuring-advertising-performance-your-guide-to-success">to</a> <a href="https://searchengineland.com/using-auction-insights-for-better-ppc-competitor-analysis-343264">endless</a> <a href="https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2020/07/28/10-reasons-why-marketers-use-data-to-make-budgeting-decisions/">think</a> <a href="https://www.oberlo.co.uk/blog/spent-200000-facebook-ads-heres-learned">pieces</a>, how-to guides, ebooks or other dreck about how we need to track and measure and count every little thing.</p>
<p>We've got click rates, impressions, conversion rates, open rates, ROAS, pageviews, bounces rates, ROI, CPM, CPC, impression share, average position, sessions, channels, landing pages, KPI after never ending KPI.</p>
<p>That'd be fine if all this shit meant something and we knew how to interpret it. But <em>it doesn't</em> and <strong>we don't</strong>.</p>
<p>The reality is much simpler, and therefore much more complex. Most of us don't understand how data is collected, how these mechanisms work and most importantly where and how they <em>don't</em> work.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/874736/ad-blocker-usage-in-united-kingdom/">36% percent of people in the UK</a> use an adblocker, which means your javascript based website tracking is meaningless</li>
<li>Email open rates <a href="https://developermedia.com/email-open-rates-misleading-metrics-best-practices-2/">don't <em>actually</em> indicate that an email was opened</a>, merely that a request was made to a server</li>
<li>The black boxes inside Facebook and other ad exchanges give you <a href="https://www.etcentric.org/facebook-agrees-to-40-million-fine-for-incorrect-ad-metrics/">flat out wrong</a> data about how your ads are performing</li>
<li>The audiences you're targeting on Google, Bing, etc <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/augustinefou/2020/11/02/got-large-budgets-you-need-to-spend-fraudsters-will-help-you-spend-it/?sh=54b93f867a9f">are fraudulent</a> and don't even exist</li>
<li>The exchanges you're purchasing media space from are <a href="https://www.adexchanger.com/mobile/is-ubers-new-ad-fraud-lawsuit-futile-or-game-changing/">cheating you</a></li>
</ul>
<p>And even if we know how the data is collected, what it means and what it's actually tracking, most of us don't have the technical chops to analyse the data we've collected<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketers-addicted-bad-data/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup>. I don't mean to rag on anyone by saying this, but we do need a reality check.</p>
<p>And look. I get it. Having tangible data allows us to demonstrate that we're doing our job and we're trying to measure and improve what we're doing. But as Bob Hoffman rightly points out - <a href="http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-mystery-of-modern-media.html">that's not how brands are built</a>.</p>
<p>The numbers are often all we have to prove our case, to get more budget and in extreme cases, to continue to stay employed. We'll remain in this mess until we can separate marketing from short sighted and poorly informed decision making. Until leaders can lead on the strength of their conviction and experience instead of second guessing themselves and their staff based on the inadequacy of data.</p>
<p>I don't know what the way out of this mess is, or what the path to success looks like. All I know is this.</p>
<p><em>We're addicted to bad data</em>.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Go ahead, ask the average marketer how to properly calculate the sample size for an A/B test, or what a Chi-Squared test is, or even what power is and why it's important. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/marketers-addicted-bad-data/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
SaaS Prototyping with Observable, Firebase and Stripe
2020-11-07T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/saas-prototype-observable-hq-stripe-firebase/
<p>Observable is a super handy data visualisation notebook, but it can be used for a lot more than that, as this post demonstrates.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As it turns out, it is possible to make money, right inside Observable. In this tutorial, I will walk you through the bare essentials fo building a SaaS product. Login, persisting customer data, security, implementing a backend, periodic jobs and charging money. As will also share my low effort tips to make things pretty, easily build UIs and some help hiding Observable's warts when building SaaS.</p>
</blockquote>
Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data
2020-10-25T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/reinventing-capitalism-in-the-age-of-big-data/
<p><em>Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data</em> looks at how the markets could work if they truly made use of data, and what that could mean for society.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Conventional markets have been highly useful, but they simply canât compete with their data-driven kin. Data translates into too much of an improvement in transactions and efficiency. Data-rich markets finally deliver what markets, in theory, should always have been very good atâenabling optimal transactionsâbut because of informational constraints really werenât.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fundamental argument made by <em>Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data</em> is that current markets make poor use of data. If we truly want efficient markets we need to open up the data economy to a level never before seen.</p>
<p>We are already seeing businesses moving towards a data driven economy, such as in the widely reported story in which Japanese insurance firm Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/05/japanese-company-replaces-office-workers-artificial-intelligence-ai-fukoku-mutual-life-insurance">replaced 34 employees</a> with IBM's Watson AI technology.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are still in the early days of the data age. The rate at which workers are made redundant by data-driven automation is bound to accelerate in the coming years. If the link to labor share is real, this will prompt a further reduction in the share of income accruing to workers, while it enriches investors and banks.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Where <em>Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data</em> gets interesting is in its proposals on how to adequately tax businesses in this proposed new economy. Given the size and entrenchment of the tech giants, new methods of taxation must be used to prevent them from entirely controlling this new market.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Market concentration is on the rise, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom, and is becoming more prevalent in continental Europe in a wide variety of sectors and industries. Big companies are getting bigger, while (despite our seeming infatuation with entrepreneurship and start-ups) business dynamism, driven by innovative disruptors challenging entrenched incumbents, is ebbing, especially in the high-tech sectors.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Data collected by tech giants could be taxed in much the same way that their revenues currently are, with businesses forced to share some of their proprietary information with governments and their smaller competitors, giving them a chance to compete in this new data driven business.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we accept that a general shift in the economy from reliance on money to reliance on rich data is underway, we ought to think more creatively about how to get companies to pay the taxes they owe. Governments might consider a partial payment of taxes in data rather than money. Car manufacturers might provide the public with anonymized sensor data from their cars; government could use it to identify particularly dangerous spots on the roads, thereby improving safety. A similar approach could improve food safety by using feedback data collected from farms and supermarkets. Feedback data from online learning platforms could help improve decision-making in the public-education sector, and decision-assistance data used for transaction matching could be reused in an early warning system that better predicts market bubbles.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If you can make it past the first chapter, which I found painfully tedious, you'll soon find a hugely compelling and interesting look at what our future may look like.</p>
Mindf*ck
2020-10-25T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/mindf-ck/
<p>I seem to have picked a good time to finally getting around to reading Chris Wylie's <em>Mindf</em>ck*, with the ICO <a href="https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2020/10/blog-the-conclusion-of-the-ico-s-investigation-into-the-use-of-personal-data-in-political-campaigning/">recently completing</a> their investigation into Cambridge Analytica's use of personal data in political campaigning.</p>
<p>Chris Wylie is not a sympathetic protagonist, he's one of the key players complicit in illegally obtaining data on tens of millions of people in the USA through Facebook's leaky API's. At many points in Mindf*ck, Chris talks about how exciting the work he's carrying out was, with no thought given to the huge potential for damage the data can cause and the invasion of privacy carried out in the process by himself and his colleagues.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The following week, Kogan sent SCL tens of thousands of Facebook profiles, and we did some tests to make sure the data was as valuable as weâd hoped. It was even better. It contained complete profiles of tens of thousands of users â name, gender, age, location, status updates, likes, friends â everything. Kogan said his Facebook app could even pull private messages. âOkay,â I told him. âLetâs go.â</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Mindf*ck acts as an interesting story that helps to link key political players together. The Mercers (mentioned in <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-man-who-solved-the-market"><em>The Man who Solved the Market</em></a>) were instrumental in funding Cambridge Analytica's activity in the US and the UK with Steve Bannon soon joining the team and taking control of the project.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Bannon transformed CA into a tool for automated bullying and scaled psychological abuse. The firm started this journey by identifying a series of cognitive biases that it hypothesised would interact with latent racial bias. Over the course of many experiments, we concocted an arsenal of psychological tools that could be deployed systematically via social media, blogs, groups and forums.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Much can be said about Facebook's complete lack of oversight during these events. They knew that Kogan was exfiltrating the data of millions of Facebook users. They knew that people were using their open search tool to scrape the personal information (you could find personal profiles by email address) of hundreds of millions of people. Time and time again, Facebook have had the opportunity to do the right thing. Time and time again they have chosen not to do so.</p>
<p>The story of Cambridge Analytica is by and large one entirely devoid of <em>good guys</em>. Chris Wylie is no exception here, however helpful he been in bringing the story to light.</p>
<p>I don't we've yet reached the end of this story. More details will inevitable emerge. We just need to hope that governments are prepared to take the right action in protecting individual's privacy and ensuring that tech companies cannot exploit human psychology to pervert modern democracy.</p>
<p>Sadly, those who most stand to benefit from reading this book are unlikely to do so. Precisely for the reasons described in this book.</p>
How Numbers Work
2020-10-25T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/how-numbers-work/
<p>Pretty much exactly what it says on the cover. <em>How Numbers Work</em> is an interesting look at the history mathematical rules and some of the special numbers used<br />
in modern mathematics such as zero, pi, e and infinity.</p>
<p>It's a shame I didn't read this when I was much younger as I think it'd have made me more interested in maths and more likely to study it in a more serious manner at school. All I can do now is play catch up and read about things like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_set">empty set</a> that I wish I'd been taught in my early 'teens.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The late physicist John Wheeler said that âthe basis of all mathematics is 0 = 0â, referring to the idea that all mathematical structures can be derived from something called âthe empty setâ, the set that contains no elements</p>
</blockquote>
The Undoing Project
2020-10-03T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-undoing-project/
<p>Michael Lewis is an exceptional storyteller and <em>The Undoing Project</em> is no exception. This is a deftly written story about how an exceptional collaboration and friendship sprung between Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Two psychologists who changed the world with their discoveries on human decision making.</p>
<p>The Undoing Project doesn't tell you much about the heuristics discovered by Kahneman and Tversky, if you're interested in those you should go read <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/thinking-fast-and-slow">Thinking Fast and Slow</a>. Either way, this is a great story and one well worth reading if you're interested in understanding how this incredible work came about.</p>
Demand-Side Sales 101
2020-10-03T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/demand-side-sales-101/
<p>I picked this one up after <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1308470995875848192">Jason Fried</a> tweeted about it, and I'm glad I did.</p>
<p>Recently at work what I've become increasingly involved with working with sales, that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned as it means I get to see a broader perspective on how we market and sell our product.</p>
<p><em>Demand Side Sales 101</em> comes at a good time, then. It's fascinating reading Bob Moesta's take on what sales <em>should</em> be, and there's nothing I disagree with here. Fundamentally it's about becoming closer to the customer and understanding what problems drive them so that a product can be positioned appropriately according to their needs. Not according to a generic feature spec like a larger screen, longer battery life or whatever.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Great salespeople donât walk around in a sharkskin suit, selling for the sake of profit. Great salespeople are real people: they ask questions, they listen, they learn, and they help you make progress in your life. Salespeople help customers solve problems and make progress in their life. Instead of pushing their product, they represent their product and how it fits into your life. Sales is about perspectiveâthink concierge, mentor, or a coach, not an order taker. Itâs about looking through your customerâs eyes, seeing what they see, hearing what they hear, and understanding what they mean. And thereâs nothing icky about helping people. Period!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a really short one and well worth a read if, like me, you're finding yourself working across sales as much as marketing.</p>
Barbarians at the Wall
2020-09-27T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/barbarians-at-the-wall/
<p>I've got a bad habit of reading a lot of Euro-centric history so wanted to step outside of my normal comfort zone a little with this one.</p>
<p><em>Barbarians at the Wall</em> tells the history of the Xiongnu Empire, a nomadic Empire that at its peak at around ~200 BC stretched across parts of what is now Mongolia, Kazakhstan and China.</p>
<p>Little is known about the Xiongnu, little writing by or about them has survived the two millennia since they ruled that part of the world. What is known is that they were nomads, who through force of arms (border raids were frequent) posed a considerable threat to Han China.</p>
<p>Such a threat, in fact, that large stretches of the Nothern part of the Great Wall of China were built to defend against Xiongnu attacks. These would continue with the Han-Xiongnu war in 129 BC and through periods of civil war and instability within the Xiongnu Empire towards 60 BC.</p>
<p><em>Barbarians at the Wall</em> is a great book, the descriptions of archeological excavations of elite tombs, particularly those of Gol Mod<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/barbarians-at-the-wall/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup> 1 and 2 are particularly fascinating, despite most having long ago been looted.</p>
<p>I definitely need to find some more books to read about ancient Asia.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>An example of the finds at these tombs can be seen <a href="https://edspace.american.edu/silkroadjournal/wp-content/uploads/sites/984/2017/09/YeruulErdeneandOtani_SR13_2015_pp104_108.pdf">here</a>. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/barbarians-at-the-wall/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Kochland
2020-09-27T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/kochland/
<p><em>Kochland</em> pierces the corporate veil behind the highly secretive Koch Industries, a company reported as having revenues of $110 billion in 2018, placing it firmly ahead of many of the largest companies you'll be familiar with.</p>
<p>This first and foremost is the story of how Charles Koch built an industrial juggernaut. Responsible for goods and materials society depends upon to function such as oil, plastics, chemicals, timber, glass and much more.</p>
<p>This juggernaut was built through union busting (something directly linked to the erosion of the middle class), environmental damage and exploitation of weak legislation<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/kochland/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup> as much as it was through a combination of shrewd investments and long-term strategic planning.</p>
<p>Charles Koch (and his now deceased brother David) is well known for being a libertarian<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/kochland/#fn2" id="fnref2">[2]</a></sup> and hasn't shied away from pumping tens of millions of dollars into climate change denial, tax reduction (for the ultra wealthy) and shaping political power using such vehicles as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute">Cato Institute</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Institute">Heartland Institute</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Prosperity">Americans for Prosperity</a><sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/kochland/#fn3" id="fnref3">[3]</a></sup>.</p>
<p>Like all good books this one raises a number of questions for which there is no easy answer. While you might, as I do, find Koch's politics deplorable, it's also possible to see the benefits of such schemes as Koch's 10,000% compliance scheme<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/kochland/#fn4" id="fnref4">[4]</a></sup> which has been directly linked to decreases in pollution at Koch owned industrial buildings.</p>
<p>This is a deeply complex story and one well worth reading to understand how unchecked corporate power impacts the world we live in.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>They actively campaigned for deregulation of the California energy market, which led to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000%E2%80%9301_California_electricity_crisis">California energy crisis</a>, causing billions of dollars in losses at energy providers like PG&E. This would then be <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53072946">directly linked</a> to the wildfires suffered in California in recent years. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/kochland/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>aka a selfish cunt <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/kochland/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>A group that was intrinsically <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/08/30/covert-operations">linked with the rise of the Tea Party</a> in direct opposition to President Obama. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/kochland/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>Not that that has come without its own issues, as the rising number of <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/rising-profits-rising-injuries-the-safety-crisis-at-koch-industries-georgia-pacific">serious injuries at Georgia-Pacific</a>, a Koch subsidiary, demonstrates. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/kochland/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
No Logo
2020-09-10T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/no-logo/
<p>This book was recommended to me by <a href="https://twitter.com/ParryMalm">Parry Malm</a> and I'm extremely thankful for it.</p>
<p>Despite being written in the 90's and published in 2000, <em>No logo</em> paves the way in understanding how brands became the giant we now know them to be. Whether that's <em>Nike</em>, <em>Apple</em> or even <em>Trump</em>.</p>
<p>The premise is simple. In the mid 80's businesses began to understand that brand, not product, was king. Thus began a revolution that turned the world upside down.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Despite different cultures, middle-class youth all over the world seem to live their lives as if in a parallel universe. They get up in the morning, put on their Levi's and Nikes, grab their caps and backpacks, and Sony personal CD players and head for school.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>No Logo</em> is a story about global exploitation, racism and corporate greed that carries on to this day. It's a story of extreme narcissism that couldn't be more relevant at a time where hundreds of thousands of people are desperate to become "influencers".</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Like so much of cool hunting, Hilfiger's marketing journey feeds off the alienation at the heart of America's race relations: selling white youth on their fetishization of black style, and black youth on their fetishization of white wealth.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There's a paragraph I feel was particularly powerful towards the end of the book, in which <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owens_Wiwa">Owens Wiwa</a> talks about the importance of not making people feel powerless in their fight against a movement.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is important not to make people feel powerless. After all, they need to fill their cars with something. If we tell them all companies are guilty, they will feel they can do nothing. What we are trying to really do, now that we have this evidence against this one company, is to let people have the feeling that they can at least have the moral force make one company change.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A point that couldn't be more relevant in the face of the current fight against global climate change.</p>
<p>I wish I'd read this book two decades ago. I'd have been a better person for it.</p>
Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments
2020-08-16T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/trustworthy-online-controlled-experiments/
<p>I'm glad I stumbled across this book recently while reading an excellent article on <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/non-significance-ab-testing">non-significance in A/B testing</a>.</p>
<p>If you want to understand what A/B testing is. <strong>Read this book</strong>.</p>
<p>If you want to understand why you should conduct A/B testing. <strong>Read this book</strong>.</p>
<p>If you want to understand how to conduct A/B testing. <strong>Read this book</strong>.</p>
<p>In over a decade of being interested in and working in online marketing, <em>Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments</em> is the single most valuable and most comprehensive resource I've ever found on conducting A/B testing.</p>
<p>Kohavi, Tang and Xu have worked at the biggest tech companies in the world (Microsoft, Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, etc) and have the experience to match. They've taken that experience and have used to highlight 23 key principles people should think about when testing.</p>
<p><em>Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments</em> distills everything you could want to know about testing, it's free from buzzwords and free from the usual bullshit you find in a lot of similar material, taking a more scholarly approach to the subject.</p>
<p>While the book aims to be useful to people working at Google scale companies, there's a lot to learn even if you're working on significantly smaller programs. From understanding how you should go about collecting data, why you should A/A test<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/trustworthy-online-controlled-experiments/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup>, how to properly evaluate whether a test was successful or not, ethical considerations when conducting a test or how to properly feed institutional insights back into the company.</p>
<p>I think this is a book I'll be reading and re-reading for many years to come.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>And how you can do so by solely using past data you've already collected. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/trustworthy-online-controlled-experiments/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Byzantium
2020-08-15T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/byzantium/
<p>Byzantium gets a bad rap and is synonymous with inefficient bureaucracy. Fortunately this book is an absolute eye opener and sets the record straight on a fascinating empire that lasted for over 1,000 years.</p>
<p>Unlike some of the other history books I've read recently, particularly <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20200106-weekly-reading"><em>The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History</em></a> which was a bit of a slog<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/byzantium/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup>. <em>Byzantium</em> is written in a really engaging format, short chapters are dedicated to specific subjects such as Greek Orthodoxy, Iconoclasm and the veneration of Icons, Literacy and education in the empire, the empire's role in protecting Western Europe against Islamic invaders and lots more.</p>
<p>The Byzantine empire was crucial in preserving ancient Greek learning and combining it with Arabic discoveries. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_VII_of_Constantinople">John the Grammarian</a> was sent twice by Emperor Theophilos to the Abbasid court and returned with new Arabic scientific and mathematical texts.</p>
<p>The legacy of the Byzantine empire can still be seen today, with monuments of ancient Constantinople (now Istanbul) like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia">Hagia Sophia</a> still standing close to 1,500 years after if was built and, in more general terms, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church">Eastern Orthodox Church</a> and the general culture of Western Europe.</p>
<p>A fascinating read on a much-maligned Empire, Western Europe as we now know it wouldn't be the same without it<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/byzantium/#fn2" id="fnref2">[2]</a></sup>.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>A slog is putting it lightly, that book took me <em>ages</em> to read. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/byzantium/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>For better or worse <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/byzantium/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Narconomics
2020-08-06T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/narconomics/
<p>Using economics to understand how modern drug cartels work shouldn't be this compelling.</p>
<p><em>Narconomics</em> takes a deep look at the drug trade and the economic activity of drug cartels. Covering everything from the economics of the Cocaine supply chain (government led destruction of coca plants costs hundreds of millions per year and only negatively effects the already poor farmers), collusions between competing cartels, HR problems, PR problems, offshoring (moving production to economically cheaper areas), legal highs, online shopping and diversification.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The vast increase in spending on border security has inadvertently transformed the people-smuggling business from an optional, cheap, amateur affair into a near-compulsory, very expensive, and cartel-dominated one. It is a gift to organized crime.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A great read that offers more solutions to effectively fighting the drugs trade than any action taken by Western governments in the last 4 decades.</p>
Game Theory
2020-08-06T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/game-theory/
<p><em>Game theory</em> is one of those concepts I've heard mentioned a few times but never really understood properly.</p>
<p>Unfortunately this book didn't really help. It quickly dives into concepts and uses poorly explained illustrations and definitions to support the material, adding more confusion to the text.</p>
<p>I'll continue looking for a book that explains these concepts well. For the time being, this ain't it.</p>
Cable Cowboy
2020-08-06T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/cable-cowboy/
<p>I discovered this title after listening to <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/invest-like-the-best/e/71161348">a podcast with Stripe's Patrick Collison</a> where it was mentioned.</p>
<p><em>Cable Cowboy</em> tells the story of John Malone, who helped build TCI and Liberty Media into the multi-billion-dollar companies they turned into.</p>
<p>I knew less than nothing about the cable industry before going into this, but I think it'd be fair to say that cable changed the world by providing high bandwidth infrastructure that enabled the internet boom in the late 90's and through the 00's.</p>
<p>This book is interesting not only for the thoughts on modern infrastructure, but in how much of the business tactics used back then are still applicable today. Cable was not a friendly industry. Actions taken by cable execs in the 70's and 80's can easily be compared to the actions taken by companies like Uber when trying to enter and dominate a local market.</p>
<p>Cable Cowboy also ended up being an interesting history lesson for me, showing the breakup of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System">Ma Bell</a> and the subsequent consolidation that took part with the various <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Bell_Operating_Company">Baby Bells</a> that leave the US with it's current 3-player system (AT&T, Verizon & CenturyLink).</p>
<p>You're unlikely to come away from this liking John Malone, but you'll definitely respect his business savvy and intelligence. I highly recommend reading this book.</p>
The Big Short
2020-08-06T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-big-short/
<p>I seem to be on a bit of a Michael Lewis roll this year, having already read <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/flash-boys">Flash Boys</a>, <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/boomerang">Boomerang</a> and <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-fifth-risk">The Fifth Risk</a> this year.</p>
<p><em>The Big Short</em> is one of my favourite movies and is what introduced me to Lewis' writing. Much like his other books, this one didn't disappoint. I was already familiar with the story but Lewis' writing is compelling and he's able to craft a story in a deeply engaging way.</p>
<p>The Big Short is a story of greed and how just a few people saw the warning signs that led to unprecedented chaos in the world's economy.</p>
<p>2008 was a trainwreck and in a lot of ways, the financial system did not learn to act responsibly, with governments this year having to pump unheard amounts of money into the economy to keep it afloat.</p>
<p>I'd love to think that we know better now. Unfortunately, it's clear that we do not.</p>
Statistics without Tears
2020-07-24T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/statistics-without-tears/
<p>I forgotten more GCSE and AS level stats than I care to mention so starting again from the ground up felt like the right thing to do.</p>
<p>This book starts from the very basics, explaining what a sample is and how one can be collected, statistical variables, the different types of average, normal distribution, standard deviation, etc.</p>
<p>Marketing is a career where a degree of data literacy is critical to being generally competent at your job (although you can certainly get far by pretending to understand). You'll do yourself and your colleagues a favour if you read this book.</p>
Range
2020-07-24T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/range/
<p>It's not often that I read a book that I enjoyed as much as this one.</p>
<p>I'll be the first to admit that I'm the kind of person who picks up a lot of things and drops most of them very quickly. I've <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/failed-projects">failed numerous times</a> and have a bad habit of diving really deeply into a subject before hopping off to the next thing with the attention span of a goldfish.</p>
<p>I struggled at school during my GCSE's and later my A-Levels. The idea that I had to make long-term decisions at 13 about what subjects I wanted to learn was one that boggled my mind. That only got worse at university and I dropped out of my first course, going on to eventually find something that held my interest.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The psychologists highlighted the variety of paths to excellence, but the most common was a sampling period, often lightly structured with some lessons and a breadth of instruments and activities, followed only later by a narrowing of focus, increased structure, and an explosion of practice volume.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In that sense the concept of self-exploration is one I've always found to be important. Crucial, even.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Learning stuff was less important than learning about oneself. Exploration is not just a whimsical luxury of education; it is a central benefit.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>There's nothing like washing dishes for a living to focus your mind on what you don't want to do for the rest of your life.</em></p>
<p>I've been doing email marketing for the last 9 years, and, well, nothing's really materially changed in the industry in that time. Reading something like this is the right kind of kick up the arse to start learning new skills.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Switchers are winners. It seems to fly in the face of hoary adages about quitting, and of far newer concepts in modern psychology.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Change can be hard, but stagnation is worse. Read this book.</p>
Ed Hardy: the Godfather of Tattooing
2020-07-23T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/ed-hardy-tattooing/
<p>We've all seen the infamous "Ed Hardy" brand, but what do you know about the man himself?</p>
<p>This great little documentary from Vice shows there's much more to the name behind the brand than the trash culture he's associated with.</p>
Warhammer 40k Digital Strategy and Opportunities
2020-07-11T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/warhammer-digital-app-opportunities-strategy/
<p>To coincide with the launch of Warhammer 40k 9th edition, Games Workshop <a href="https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/07/09/the-app-all-you-need-to-know/">recently announced</a> the release of their first dedicated app for the 40k franchise.</p>
<p>This app will finally allow 40k players to easily check core game rules and rules for any additional supplements or codexes they purchase. A modest ÂŁ3.99 monthly subscription will also allow app users to have access to an army list builder and enhanced referencing, the latter of which seems to imply some sort of enhanced search but isn't clear.</p>
<p>The digitisation of codexes has been a long time coming, allowing app users to easily navigate rules that are always up to date. Previously, a gamer would have to have a physical copy of the book, plus various rules errata and FAQ's acquired online which are designed to clarify and amend rules to aid ongoing balancing.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/warhammerApp.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/warhammerApp.png" alt="40k App" /></a></p>
<p>The army list builder in particular seems to be a smart move and a sign of Games Workshop's ongoing strategic initiatives, <em>more on that later</em>.</p>
<p>From a cost perspective, ÂŁ3.99 is modest, however Games Workshop are directly competing here with fan-built <a href="https://battlescribe.net/">BattleScribe</a> and <a href="http://wahapedia.ru/">Wahapedia</a>. I'm not an advocate for piracy however the reality is Games Workshop have lagged in this area and it's unsurprising that, with their <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Codex-Space-Marines-HB-EN-2019">pricing</a> <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Codex-Salamanders-EN-2019">strategy</a>, they're having to directly compete with pirate products. People don't want to pay ÂŁ25+ just to understand how to play the game.</p>
<p>This app has been a long time coming, and it's a total no-brainer following the huge success of <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/">D&D Beyond</a> (DDB) built by the awesome folks at Curse (I worked there pre-DDB days). From a cost perspective DDB subscriptions are a little more attractive, however folks have long complained that purchases of physical books don't allow them to get access to the relevant books and features in DDB with having to additionally purchase the digital content too.</p>
<h2>Warhammer Digital Strategy</h2>
<p>There are obvious shortcomings from this being an app based product. Since 2016 Games Workshop have made huge headway in the way they interact with their community through the <a href="https://www.warhammer-community.com/">Warhammer Community</a> site, with a large focus and investment in written and video content. Unlike DDB however this community aspect is currently relatively limited, there are no forums offered or ways for players to share their love of the hobby directly with other players.</p>
<p>According to the most recent<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/warhammer-digital-app-opportunities-strategy/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup> half-year report:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Communities and customer engagement - we have continued to build new communities, opening 12 stores in the period and c.200 trade accounts. Our digital engagement continues to increase in reach and scope. Users accessing <a href="http://warhammercommunity.com/">Warhammercommunity.com</a> over the six month period are up 48% compared to the same period last year and sessions per user have also increased, meaning our fans are visiting more often and are more engaged with the content</p>
</blockquote>
<p>48% YoY user growth for an already well established website is hugely impressive, as is the increase in sessions per user, though I think that can be attributed more to an increase in posts rather than an increase in engagement on the site.</p>
<p>The missing piece of the puzzle for Warhammer Community is exploiting user generated content, there are <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/">huge</a> <a href="https://www.dakkadakka.com/">thriving</a> <a href="http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/">communities</a> of passionate fans sharing everything from gaming tips to painting guides to photos of <a href="http://www.coolminiornot.com/topweek">incredible miniatures</a>.</p>
<p>Furthermore, a significant portion of Games Workshop's community outreach work is done through third party social media websites, which represents significant risks. An owned platform would eliminate these risks.</p>
<p>Given the strong social aspect of the game and the fact that Games Workshop have 517 stores in 23 countries around the world (plus an additional ~4,700 independent retailers), there's also a strong argument to be made for a need to more localise the digital experience at the community level, in a way that can be used to build player engagement with their local store. Retail represents 34%<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/warhammer-digital-app-opportunities-strategy/#fn2" id="fnref2">[2]</a></sup> of sales so is a critical path to building engagement and sales.</p>
<p>A digital experience would allow store managers to easily organise and plan games and events for their local community, while giving the community and prospective buyers an easy way to join the hobby at their own pace.</p>
<p>It's easy to forget, but retail stores should not be judged solely on the revenue they bring in directly. By being on the high street, Warhammer stores attract new players to the hobby and provide key avenues in creating great customer experiences - bridging that digital gap would provide a combined digital storefront and community so that customers can experience the great retail environment in the comfort of their own home.</p>
<p>Snuck into the announcement is a mention of a <strong>My Warhammer</strong> account. While mentioning no details at all, the move towards creating a single sign-on across all Warhammer experiences would be a tremendous boost in better understanding customer behaviour.</p>
<h2>Warhammer Digital Opportunities</h2>
<p>In late October last year, Games Workshop migrated their marketing emails from Mailchimp to Selligent. That might not sound like a big deal to the average 40k fan, but I've been in marketing long enough to understand what a platform like Selligent can bring to a retail business when properly integrated.</p>
<p>While I've not yet noticed any significant personalisation when it comes to their email program, there are hints available that Games Workshop may soon take this channel seriously.</p>
<p>A quick look at their website shows that they're starting to integrate Selligent tracking on their main retail store and their more specialised <a href="https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/FW-Home">Forge World</a> store.</p>
<pre><code class="language-html"><script>
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<p>Selligent will also allow them to use push and in-app messaging and more importantly for a business like Games Workshop, will allow them to use location based messaging based on an app users proximity to a retail store.</p>
<p>From a CRM program perspective, Games Workshop will not only know exactly what content and products a customer has looked at and purchased online and in-store, but by using prior purchase history they'll be able to personalise product recommendations based on army lists created by an app user.</p>
<p>To maximise this latter opportunity, Games Workshop should make the list builder part of the free content available in the app and should roll out a web app to maximise the number of gamers providing valuable personalisation data.</p>
<p>The Games Workshop online store should become a highly personalised system that would reduce marketing and merchandising costs while delivering a higher ROI.</p>
<p>It should be a no-brainer that Games Workshop make direct purchasing of additional rules possible within their app. With the data they'll be capturing not only will they be able to sell digital content directly, but with campaign books they'll be able to directly sell rules as microtransactions. For example a Death Guard player may simply want to purchase the new rules for DG units available from the <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Psychic-Awakening-War-Of-The-Spider-EN-2020">War of the Spider</a> supplement without shelling out for the whole book.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/ddbMicrotransactions.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/ddbMicrotransactions.png" alt="Microtransactions on DDB" /></a></p>
<p><em>Microtransactions on DDB</em>.</p>
<p>Providing support for a <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/mobile-wallet-marketing">digital wallet</a> would not only allow Games Workshop to collect information about purchases through digital loyalty cards, but the scheme could be rolled out to all 4,700 independent retailers. This would allow Games Workshop to know not only what an individual has purchased directly from them, but also from their trade network which represents 47% of all sales.</p>
<p>Finally, Warhammer Community needs to be directly integrated into the online shopping experience. Gamers should be able to directly purchase products from news pages.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019-20-half-year-report.pdf">page 3 of the half year report</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/warhammer-digital-app-opportunities-strategy/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2018-19-Annual-Report-with-Cover.pdf">Page 5 of the 2018-2019 annual report</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/warhammer-digital-app-opportunities-strategy/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Superior
2020-07-08T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/superior/
<p>With everything going on in the world right now, it seemed apropos to try to educate myself on the history of race science.</p>
<p>Race science has a long and sordid history. A history in which no Western country truly remains innocent but in which the UK can be considered one of the leaders in the racist "science" of eugenics.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To file away what happened during the war as aberrant, as something that could only have been done by the worst people under the worst circumstances, ignores the bigger truth. This was never a simple story of good versus evil. The well of scientific ideas from which Hitler and others in his regime drew their plans for âracial hygieneâ, leading ultimately to genocide, didnât originate in Germany alone. They had been steadily supplied for more than a century by race scientists from all over the world, supported by well-respected intellectuals, aristocrats, political leaders and women and men of wealth. Among the most influential of them all, as far as the Nazi regime was concerned, was a pair of statisticians working at 50 Gower Street, Bloomsbury â not in Germany, but in the famous old literary quarter of London.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I say "science" and not science because this is the very crux of this book. Race science is not grounded in any real scientific fact. Skin colour, eye colour, "race". These things are only important in as much as they're considered to be politically important.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ultimately, politics is always a feature of the science, just as it was in the very beginning. Once there was the backdrop of slavery and colonialism, then it was immigration and segregation, and now it is the right-wing agenda of this age. Nativism remains an issue, but there is also a backlash against greater efforts to promote racial equality in multicultural societies. And just like before, the message of those with racist intentions is tailored gently, carefully sculpted to appeal to populist fears while at the same time sounding logical and reasonable. Communicating with me, for example, Gerhard Meisenberg uses the word âcultureâ alongside the word âraceâ as though theyâre fully interchangeable, understanding how much most people these days value and respect cultural boundaries, even if they donât recognise biological race.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There's far too much for me to unpack from this book, it's an important and valuable read that I'd recommend to absolutely everyone. Come for the dismantling of race science but stay for the absolute dismantling of our current political and anti-science political climate.</p>
Only 9% of Site Visitors Consent to Marketing Tracking
2020-07-07T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/gdpr-9-percent-opt-in-to-tracking/
<p>Some fantastic, albeit unsurprising research from Marko Saric on how many website visitors will give a GDPR compliant level of consent to being tracked by a marketing analytics tool.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you implement a proper GDPR consent banner, a vast majority of visitors will most probably decline to give you consent. 91% to be exact out of 19,000 visitors in my study.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That's a marked difference from the > 90% opt-in rate <a href="https://martechtoday.com/quantcast-reports-more-than-90-of-visitors-to-eu-domains-grant-gdpr-consent-219462">claimed by Quantcast</a>. Admittedly, most implementations of their tool are themselves, <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2001.02479.pdf">falling short of being compliant with the regulations</a> or ignoring <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/digital-marketing-post-gdpr">existing guidance from the ICO</a>.</p>
Non-Significance in A/B Testing
2020-07-06T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/non-significance-ab-testing/
<p>Some wise words on why you shouldn't always "ship flat" with your non-significant a/b tests.</p>
Barbarians at the Gate
2020-07-04T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/barbarians-at-the-gate/
<p><em>Barbarians at the Gate</em> is the story of <strong>RJR Nabisco</strong>, the American conglomerate that sold everything from Oreos to Camel cigarettes.</p>
<p>In particular, the series of events that led to the management team seeking to sell the company via a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveraged_buyout">leveraged buyout</a>, taking the company from being a publicly owned entity to private ownership.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Everyone in the room knew about leveraged buyouts, often called LBOs. In an LBO, a small group of senior executives, usually working with a Wall Street partner, proposes to buy its company from public shareholders, using massive amounts of borrowed money. Critics of this procedure called it stealing the company from its owners and fretted that the growing mountain of corporate debt was hindering Americaâs ability to compete abroad. Everyone knew LBOs meant deep cuts in research and every other imaginable budget, all sacrificed to pay off debt.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What follows is the spectacular drama that followed RJR Nabisco's management teams attempts to follow through with this LBO, led by Ross Johnson, the CEO and backed by the team at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shearson#Shearson_Lehman_Hutton">Shearson Lehman Hutton</a>.</p>
<p>At the time, the deal Ross Johnson tried to broker for himself and top management staff at RJR Nabisco was seen to be the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/09/business/rjr-nabisco-discloses-guidelines-for-its-buyout.html">height of greed and excess</a>, a grand sum of $52.5 million ($113.8 million adjusted for inflation). A paltry sum compared to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/21/elon-musk-tesla-bonus-pay">$55bn payout</a> pay deal Elon Musk was approved to receive two years ago.</p>
<p>The story of RJR Nabisco is the story of 80's Wall Street excess and highlights everything wrong in a world where a business can saddle a newly purchased company with crushing amounts of debt. Tactics still being used to this day leading to the bankruptcy of the much loved Toys "R" Us, to name but one recent victim.</p>
<p>This is a must-read.</p>
The Great Mental Models
2020-07-02T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-great-mental-models/
<p>I've been aware of the <a href="https://fs.blog/">Farnam Street</a> blog for a number of years now but always found it fairly impenetrable.</p>
<p>This was a fairly good intro to the general concept of <em>mental models</em>, but felt fairly light if you've ever read anything vaguely approaching this subject.</p>
<p>The book can be roughly broken down into the following concepts:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>The Map is not the Territory</strong> - The description of the thing is not the thing itself.</li>
<li><strong>Circle of Competence</strong> - The subject area that matches your skills or expertise.</li>
<li><strong>Inversion</strong> - Approaching a situation from the opposite end.</li>
<li><strong>Occamâs Razor</strong> - Something simple is more likely to be true than something complex.</li>
<li><strong>Hanlonâs Razor</strong> - Don't attribute to malice that which is more easily explained by stupidity.</li>
</ol>
<p>There's a few more but those are what stood out to me.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Successfully thinking in shades of probability means roughly identifying what matters, coming up with a sense of the odds, doing a check on our assumptions, and then making a decision. We can act with a higher level of certainty in complex, unpredictable situations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nothing earthshakingly revelatory here, but an enjoyable read nevertheless.</p>
Why Google Dominates Advertising Markets
2020-06-30T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/why-google-dominates-advertising/
<blockquote>
<p>This Paper explains how Google dominates advertising markets by engaging in conduct that lawmakers prohibit in other electronic trading markets: Googleâs exchange shares superior trading information and speed with the Google-owned intermediaries, Google steers buy and sell orders to its exchange and websites (Search & YouTube), and Google abuses its access to inside information.</p>
</blockquote>
The Man Who Solved the Market
2020-06-21T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-man-who-solved-the-market/
<p>If, like me, you thought you had a vague idea how the market worked then <em>The Man Who Solved the Market</em> is an absolutely eye-opening read.</p>
<p><em>The Man Who Solved the Market</em> tells the story of the secretive mathematician and business owner Jim Simons and his creation of <a href="https://www.rentec.com/Home.action?index=true">Renaissance Technologies</a> and the industry leading Medallion Fund.</p>
<p>This is first and foremost a story about how mathematicians (or <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_analysis_(finance)">quants</a></em> as they're known), came to dominate the world of finance, leading the charge with early mathematical methods such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain">Markov Chains</a> and early machine learning methods to create automated trading systems that came to dominate the market.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Elsewhere, statisticians were using similar approachesâcalled kernel methodsâto analyze patterns in data sets. Back on Long Island, Henry Laufer was working on similar machine-learning tactics in his own research and was set to share it with Simons and others. Carmona wasnât aware of this work. He was simply proposing using sophisticated algorithms to give Ax and Straus the framework to identify patterns in current prices that seemed similar to those in the past.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like me, you were probably raised on the idea that the stock market was rational and understandable, but it seems reality is a little more complex and a little more abstract. Over the last few decades, the market has become the plaything for complex algorithms that are able to make money through identifying and making use of trends that would be unobservable to a regular person.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Weâre right 50.75 percent of the time . . . but weâre 100 percent right 50.75 percent of the time,â Mercer told a friend. âYou can make billions that way.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You might recognise that name, Mercer. Robert Mercer was a key employee at Rentec and made hundreds of millions from the performance of the employee-only Medallion Fund. Millions that he subsequently used to fund Breitbart News, Cambridge Analytica, Brexit, Trump and more.</p>
<p>According to Bloomberg<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-man-who-solved-the-market/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup> the Medallion Fund has averaged annualised returns (after fees) of ~70% since 1988. Assuming a single $1,000 deposit in 1988, with that rate of return and no subsequent deposits an investor would now have ~$23,679,115,947. For comparisons sake, in the UK right now you can expect a return <em>up to</em> 1.4%<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-man-who-solved-the-market/#fn2" id="fnref2">[2]</a></sup> for a savings accounts.</p>
<p>With the recent rise of the <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/flash-boys">Flash Boys</a>, it's clear the market is in the grip of machine based trading, where that leaves the casual investor like you and me remains an open question.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-12/the-unsolved-mystery-of-the-medallion-fund-s-success">The Unsolved Mystery of the Medallion Fundâs Success</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-man-who-solved-the-market/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-best-interest/">Top Savings Accounts</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-man-who-solved-the-market/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Maths on the Back of an Envelope
2020-06-18T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/maths-back-of-envelope/
<p>I've forgotten more high school maths than I care to admit so this was a great little refresher.</p>
<p>Some nice pointers for improving your mental arithmetic, which is always handy when you have to quickly report on numbers at work. Worth pickip up for 99p if you see it on Kindle sale like I did.</p>
Mobile Wallet Marketing
2020-06-14T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/mobile-wallet-marketing/
<p>You've probably seen mobile wallets before, with Google Pay on Android devices or the Apple Wallet app on iPhone, but if you're like me, you might never have thought about the marketing opportunities available within these apps.</p>
<p>Typically, mobile wallets are used to securely store debit and credit card details for online and contactless payments. They're also frequently used to store tickets and passes such as boarding passes for flights or tickets to an event or gig.</p>
<p>One aspect I hadn't come across until yesterday was the ability to store loyalty cards within your wallet.</p>
<p>I've been a subscriber to the Kooples mailing list for a few years now and recently received a newsletter<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/mobile-wallet-marketing/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup> from them promoting their new Wallet based loyalty scheme, I've not seen one of these before so I had to check it out.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/kooples-wallet-email.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/kooples-wallet-email.png" alt="Kooples wallet email campaign" /></a></p>
<p>Once downloaded and setup, I had a new pass available in my wallet.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/wallet.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/wallet.png" alt="Kooples pass in Wallet" /></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/pass.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/pass.png" alt="Kooples pass" /></a></p>
<h2>Cool. Now What?</h2>
<p>Okay, so you've successfully got some people to download your pass, now what?</p>
<p>This is where things become interesting to the CRM Marketer in me. Both Google and Apple allow you to customise the content of the pass, which allows you to display a variety of content or simply send a coupon or offer through to your customers. This content can be either mass market or personalised down to the individual level.</p>
<p>Coupons and offers can be time limited. Wallet apps can send customisable push notifications when a coupon is near expiry. Push notifications can also be geofenced, so a pass-holder can be sent a notification when they're near an associated retail location.</p>
<p>Coupons, offers and loyalty cards can also be updated at any time, ensuring the content stays relevant.</p>
<h2>How does it work?</h2>
<p>Both Apple and Google have information on how passes work on their respective mobile OS'</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://developers.google.com/pay/passes">https://developers.google.com/pay/passes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://developer.apple.com/wallet/">https://developer.apple.com/wallet/</a></li>
</ul>
<p>You can also use a specialised mobile pass marketing platform like <a href="https://popwallet.com/platform">Popwallet</a>, <a href="https://www.captainwallet.com/en/">Captain Wallet</a>, <a href="https://passworks.io/">Passworks</a> or <a href="https://www.airship.com/platform/channels/mobile-wallet/">Airship</a>.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, wallet support doesn't appear to have made it across to the larger enterprise marketing automation platforms yet, with no clear support in SFMC, Adobe or Responsys (although some of these can integrate with the above listed specialised platforms).</p>
<p>It appears that <a href="https://uplandsoftware.com/mobile-messaging/product/features/mobile-wallet/">Upland</a> (Acquirer of ESP Adestra) is leading the way with a more integrated solution.</p>
<h2>What's Next?</h2>
<p>This is still totally theoretical to me, I'm yet to work on a program that incorporates mobile wallets but it seems like an incredibly powerful channel for retailers with physical locations or anyone wanting to send push notifications without needing to roll their own app out.</p>
<p>Ever used this channel before? I'd love to know how you found it, give me a shout on Twitter or send me an email.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>It had a very subtle subject line - "YOUR CONFIDENTIAL PASS". <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/mobile-wallet-marketing/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
How Basecamp use Basecamp
2020-06-11T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/basecamp-use-basecamp/
<p>I'm not a big podcast guy, but I found this conversation between Adam Wathan (creator of <a href="https://tailwindcss.com/">Tailwind</a>) and Jason Fried (Founder & CEO of <a href="https://basecamp.com/">Basecamp</a>) really interesting.</p>
<p>In it, Jason talks about how Basecamp use Basecamp, with some interesting tidbits around their new email product, Hey.</p>
Freakonomics
2020-06-07T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/freakonomics/
<p>Freakonomics was an interesting book to read, albeit not a life altering one as the blurb would have you believe.</p>
<p>Part of that is to do with the book's age, it was first published 15 years ago and while some of the ideas expressed may have been novel at the time, they appear quite banal now. I suppose that means the book did influence how the world is perceived by many people.</p>
<p>The premise is relatively simple:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to workâwhereas economics represents how it actually does work.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The authors take this idea to investigate concepts like cheating by teacher in school districts, information control by estate agents, the effects of parenting on education and more.</p>
<p>It's the sort of book you can pick up and easily read in a couple sittings, and while it might not change the way you view the world, you're sure to learn a thing or two in the process.</p>
Invisible Women
2020-05-30T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/invisible-women/
<p>I'm not sure that I can give adequate voice to just how good <em>Invisible Women</em> is.</p>
<p>This is an incredibly powerful book that highlights just how unequal modern society is and what we should be trying to do to change.</p>
<p>For too many years women have suffered from decisions made to suit men. Medicines designed around the <em>"average man"</em> that don't work on or cause harm to women, products designed for male proportions that cause harm and injury to women, countless decisions based on male thinking to suit male objectives that inconvenience or otherwise harm women's daily life.</p>
<p>If you're not throwing your hands up at the injustice of the world throughout this book, I don't know what's wrong with you.</p>
The Catalyst
2020-05-16T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-catalyst/
<p>This one was sort of a cross between <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/never-split-the-difference.html">Never Split the Difference</a> and <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/thinking-fast-and-slow.html">Thinking Fast and Slow</a>, without being as good as either of those books.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, this wasn't awful by any means. Berger breaks down the actions of a change catalyst through what he calls the <strong>REDUCE</strong> framework.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Reactance</strong> - when pushed, people will push back. When trying to persuade change, encourage people by giving them the space to convince themselves.</li>
<li><strong>Endowment</strong> - The classic Endowment Effect<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-catalyst/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup>. Catalysts counter this by surfacing the costs of inaction and by showing people that inaction has a cost.</li>
<li><strong>Distance</strong> - People can't be pushed too far, find their <em>Zone of Acceptance</em> and work within it.</li>
<li><strong>Uncertainty</strong> - Uncertainty is the enemy of change, lower the barrier to entry by introducing a freemium model, for example.</li>
<li><strong>Corroborating Evidence</strong> - Use as many sources as you can to further prove your point</li>
</ul>
<p>Worth a read if you enjoyed the books I mentioned previously, but there's nothing life-changing to learn here.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J.L., Thaler, R.H., 1990. Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem. Journal of Political Economy 98, 1325â1348. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/261737">https://doi.org/10.1086/261737</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-catalyst/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
The Arabesque
2020-05-16T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-arabesque-an-introduction/
<p>This is a fantastic art history book if you're interested in learning more about arabesque patterns and the evolution of Islamic art in general.</p>
<p>An Arabesque is the term used to describe a particular type of vegetal <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scroll_(art)">scroll</a>, with a strong emphasis on order, symmetry, repetition and <em>chiaroscuro</em><sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-arabesque-an-introduction/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup>.</p>
<p>This pattern has changed over time as Islam spread from Mecca to other parts of the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Asia and through varying dynasties' individual tastes and patronage.</p>
<p>You'll find museum quality examples of arabesques in this book with examples of Qur'anic illumination, tiles, carpets, embroidery, wooden panelling and more.</p>
<p>Fantastic as a coffee table book or if you're looking to learn more about this art form.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>"the treatment of light and shade in drawing and painting."</p>
<p>Read more on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiaroscuro">Wikipedia</a>. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-arabesque-an-introduction/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Taking Notes
2020-05-14T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/zettlr-notes-zettlekasten/
<p>I was reading some articles on the <a href="https://zettelkasten.de/posts/zettelkasten-improves-thinking-writing/">Zettlekasten method</a> of note keeping last week and wanted to give it a try.</p>
<p>After a bit of investigation into various tools, mostly stuff like Roam research, various VS Code extensions, etc, I settled on a markdown editor called Zettlr.</p>
<p>Zettlr isn't just a nice markdown editor (and it is very nice to write in), but it's got some great functionality to help you manage your notes.</p>
<p>You can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Add tags to your notes to help sort and categorise them</li>
<li>Interlink notes using wiki style link markup <code>[[Links]]</code></li>
<li>Add numeric ID's to files to facilitate linking so you can change the name of the note as it evolves without breaking links</li>
<li>Sync your markdown files to git so they're available everywhere</li>
<li>Customise the app using CSS</li>
<li>Export notes in file formats like Word, PDF, HTML, etc</li>
</ul>
<p>There's a whole bunch more functionality that I've not delved into yet, like an integrated pomodoro timer, word count targets, virtual projects, citation tools, etc.</p>
<p>Here's a quick look at what the interface looks like after using it for ~1 week.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Zettlr.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Zettlr.png" alt="The Zettlr interface" /></a></p>
<p>Oh, and it's open source.</p>
<p>There's no reason not to <a href="https://www.zettlr.com/">give it a try</a>.</p>
Classical Menswear Meets Tattooing
2020-05-11T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/classical-menswear-tattooing/
<p>I've been an occasional reader of Simon Crompton's blog <a href="https://www.permanentstyle.com/">Permanent Style</a> for many years now and always find his take on luxury clothing fascinating.</p>
<p>There aren't many who can share their knowledge and insights about âŹ5,000 <a href="https://www.permanentstyle.com/2013/12/cifonelli-navy-suit.html">bespoke Cifonelli suits</a>, or <a href="https://www.permanentstyle.com/2019/06/musella-dembech-cotton-suit-style-breakdown.html">âŹ6,500 Italian tailoring</a>.</p>
<p>With an audience built with that type of content I'm intrigued to see that Simon recently got a tattoo and what his thought process behind the design and his appreciation of the work and craftsmanship that went into it by his tattoo artist (Mo Coppoletta).</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To me, it is a deep expression of who I am, and what I value. I know it isnât how everyone approaches getting a tattoo, but I see it as something profound.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is of course a long history of tattooing in the British upper classes, coming most frequently with their associations with the Royal Navy, George V was know to have a red and blue dragon on his arm<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/classical-menswear-tattooing/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup>.</p>
<p>That being said, I find it fascinating how much snobbery is exhibited by the commentators on Simon's blog. You'd have hoped that an audience that claims to appreciate art and craftsmanship could see those things in a tattoo, whether they like the style of it or not.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>George V on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_V">Wikipedia</a>. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/classical-menswear-tattooing/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
How to Build a Welcome Program
2020-05-10T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/
<p>Some collected thoughts on welcome programs.</p>
<h2>What is a welcome program?</h2>
<p>Also known as a welcome journey, or an onboarding program, a welcome program is a series of one or more automated messages (typically emails) sent to an individual when they subscribe to your mailing list.</p>
<p>These emails are sent to welcome a prospect, subscriber, or customer into your email program, and can be used to drive sales, introduce a customer to advanced product functionality, solve problems before they surface and more.</p>
<p>Messages can be generic, or they can be personalised to the individual based on a huge wealth of factors such as the signup method, acquisition channel, demographic data, purchase data, etc.</p>
<p>You might have heard that welcome emails typically outperform standard marketing emails, and that's true<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup>. There are many reasons for this, and while it's easy to get lost in the weeds and overthink it, the biggest factor is that subscribers are at their most engaged when they first join your list.</p>
<p>While I'm going to be primarily focusing on email, it's worth remembering that there are plenty of other channels that can be used in your welcome program, from landing pages to push notifications to phone calls and more. The sky's the limit.</p>
<h2>What the hell do I know?</h2>
<p>That's a great question to ask, I've been working in email and CRM marketing for the last 9 years and have run email and CRM programs across B2C and B2B. I've done everything from selling spare parts for home appliances, luxury womenswear, payment terminals, art and much more.</p>
<p>In my career I've worked on email programs with small audiences, in the low thousands all the way up to programs where we were sending North of two million emails on a daily basis.</p>
<p>So, over the years I've picked up a few tricks that I'm going to be sharing with you.</p>
<h2>Creating your welcome program</h2>
<p>So, you've reached the first critical stage of your welcome program, you've identified that you need one.</p>
<p>At this point it's worth considering what this program is all about, <strong>what are you trying to achieve?</strong></p>
<h3>Identifying your objective</h3>
<p>A welcome program without an objective or goal is a waste of yours and your subscriber's time, so it's critical at this stage to think about what you're setting out to achieve.</p>
<p>Some goals I've come across before are:</p>
<ul>
<li>I want to sell more widgets</li>
<li>I want to introduce someone to the features of a product they've just bought</li>
<li>I want to answer questions new subscribers have before they surface and cause a problem</li>
</ul>
<p>You might have something specific to your industry or to an individual product or service you're trying to sell, what's important here is outlining a clear achievable goal that your program will be working towards.</p>
<p>According to Mailchimp <sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fn2" id="fnref2">[2]</a></sup></p>
<blockquote>
<p>On average, sending a series of welcome emails yields an average of 51% more revenue than a single welcome email.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3>Acquiring subscribers</h3>
<p>Before you go any further, you should consider how you're planning on gaining new subscribers.</p>
<p>While subscriber growth is outside the scope of this article, some common tactics you might use are to use a <a href="https://www.activecampaign.com/blog/lead-magnet-ideas-and-examples">lead magnet</a> to incentivise signups or including an opt-in within your normal sales funnel.</p>
<p>Below you can see an example of an incentivised email subscription on <a href="https://www.sigmasports.com/">Sigma Sports</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/sigmasports_signup.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/sigmasports_signup.png" alt="Email subcription box" /></a></p>
<p><em>At this stage I also wanted to show you the welcome email that came from that subscription box, but more than 24 hours later and I've still not received it.</em> đ€Šââïž</p>
<p>If you're using a lead magnet, don't forget to actually deliver on the promise you've made, there's no quicker way to erode subscriber's trust than signing up for a promised discount only to never receive it.</p>
<p>You may also need to think about the potential complexity of your program if it has multiple entry points, such as signing up online, face to face in a retail scenario or signing up at a trade show or event. The new subscribers may have different expectations based on how they've come to join your list.</p>
<p>Stuck for ideas for growing your subscriber list? <a href="https://www.moneylab.co/email/">Moneylab has the answers you need</a>.</p>
<h3>Identify opportunities</h3>
<p>Once you've identified the goal and how you're going to get new subscribers for your welcome program, you can move onto the next stage which is understanding the potential opportunities available to you to achieve that goal.</p>
<p>If your goal is to sell more product, you might try to answer these questions your new subscribers are likely to have.</p>
<ul>
<li>How does this widget work?</li>
<li>What differentiates WidgetCo from WidgetLTD?</li>
<li>What does WidgetCo stand for?</li>
</ul>
<p>With those questions above identified, you could easily create a 3-part program to help you answer those questions and sell more widgets.</p>
<p>If you're struggling to find appropriate questions, or aren't sure that you're asking the right questions you absolutely should be talking to people within your business, particularly anyone in sales or customer service who may be able to offer invaluable insights into how the customer or prospect is feeling. Not only does this improve the performance of the program as a whole but it helps to build internal support for your welcome program. Sounds like a win/win to me.</p>
<p>At my most recent workplace, we noticed that there was a high level of customer dissatisfaction from customers in their first month of being with us. After speaking with the customer service team we realised our billing cycle was unclear to customers and they were shocked when they received their first bill. By sending an email about billing in our welcome program, clearly explaining how it works, we were able to produce an immediate uplift in our first month NPS scores<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fn3" id="fnref3">[3]</a></sup>. More notably we were also able to reduce costs by decreasing the number of calls to our customer service team.</p>
<p>You might also see an opportunity to learn more about the subscriber in question. Mr Porter do this exceptionally well with an email in their welcome program designed to learn more about your favourite brands.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/MrPorter_Email.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/MrPorter_Email.png" alt="Mr Porter Email, Who are your favourite designers?" /></a></p>
<p>You could also use this opportunity to learn the customer's size, style preferences and more. This information can prove to be invaluable later when your customer shifts from your welcome program to your traditional marketing program.</p>
<p>If you're feeling adventurous you can also use the opportunity to build an immediate rapport with your new subscriber by inviting them to reply if they have any questions about your product or reply. It's a fantastic way to break through stale automated messaging and bring a real personal touch.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Baremetrics.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Baremetrics.png" alt="Baremetrics welcome email" /></a></p>
<h3>Teasing out the key messaging</h3>
<p>So you've expressed your goal and identified the opportunities, now it's time for the nuts and bolts of your welcome program, copy.</p>
<p>Your first email is always going to be the most important one, make sure to use the opportunity to thank the new subscriber for signing up and use the opportunity to set the right expectations about your welcome program and your overall email marketing program.</p>
<p>Don't forget to fulfil the promise you made with any potential lead magnet (discount codes, downloads, etc)!</p>
<p>For any subsequent emails (or SMS, push, DM, whatever) you might be putting together for the program, make sure to keep a degree of consistency across your messaging, from a clear design language to a consistent tone of voice.</p>
<p>Your emails don't need to be copy intensive, video content not only tends to have a high click rate<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fn4" id="fnref4">[4]</a></sup> but lends itself particularly well to certain types of communication. Use these emails as an opportunity to experiment with your content.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/how-to-use-platforma-in-figma.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/how-to-use-platforma-in-figma.png" alt="Platforma onboarding email" /></a><br />
Image taken from Really Good Emails.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fn5" id="fnref5">[5]</a></sup></p>
<p>If you're struggling with the tone of voice you should use in your copy the image below showcases copywriter Eugene Schwartz' Five Levels of Awareness model. Eugene Schwartz was a legendary direct mail copywriter and the author of multiple books, including the highly regarded Breakthrough Advertising<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fn6" id="fnref6">[6]</a></sup>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Schwartz-Awareness-Scale.png"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Schwartz-Awareness-Scale.png" alt="Schwartz awareness scale" /></a><br />
Image taken from Search Engine Land<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fn7" id="fnref7">[7]</a></sup>.</p>
<p>Don't forget to check details like the sender name and sender email address are clear and obvious. If I signed up for emails from WidgetsCo I expect to get an email from WidgetsCo, not Employee Bob. If you're expecting or hoping for replies, don't send from a noreply@ address, which is bad practice in any case<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fn8" id="fnref8">[8]</a></sup>.</p>
<p>This is also the opportunity to use any personalisation available to you. Whether that's a simple first name personalisation through to more complex examples like including products based on observed or inferred behaviour or even creating different messages entirely for segments of your program. Personalisation and <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/why-segmentation-isnt-always-the-answer.html">segmentation is often considered a bit of a panacea</a> when it comes to the email community but it can certainly be highly effective when done appropriately.</p>
<p>At this stage you might just have one email, or you might have a series of 20 highly segmented messages to send over multiple touchpoints, that's fine. Your brand is going to have its own requirements.</p>
<h3>Going live</h3>
<p>Well, there's no time like the present. Time to hit the big red button and get this program live!</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/push-the-button.gif"><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/push-the-button.gif" alt="Push the button" /></a></p>
<p><em><strong>What's the worst that could happen?</strong></em></p>
<h2>Ongoing improvements</h2>
<p><strong>You didn't think you were done, did you?</strong></p>
<p>Now your program's live, the real work begins. It's time to look at the data and work out whether your new program is soaring high or plummeting down to the asphalt.</p>
<p>If you followed this process you should have a clear goal that you can measure your performance against. Does the data indicate you're achieving your goal? if not, it might be time to reconsider your approach or change some of your messaging.</p>
<p>One business<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fn9" id="fnref9">[9]</a></sup> found that shifting a key sales message from the third email in their welcome program to the immediate landing page someone sees when they signed up boosted their revenue by 89%. Don't be afraid to make radical changes to your program if you think it'll make an impact.</p>
<p>Don't forget to continue to ask for feedback from other stakeholders in your business. Clearing up one issue identified by your customer service team might have exposed another, allowing you to further refine the program to solve that new problem.</p>
<p>The more you can test on an ongoing basis the better your program is going to be. <em>Perfection is nice, but I'm yet to meet a marketer that hits a home run on the first swing.</em></p>
<h2>Key components</h2>
<p>I guess you could call this the tl;dr of this post, but to summarise, this is the process I think you should follow when setting out to create a welcome program.</p>
<ol>
<li>Identify the objective for your program</li>
<li>Work out how people are going to enter your program</li>
<li>Break down your overarching objective into chunkable opportunities</li>
<li>Speak to stakeholders in the business, they'll know pain points your customers/prospects encounter</li>
<li>Build out your program, focus on clear messaging that hits those opportunities</li>
<li>Get it live!</li>
<li>Test, test and test again</li>
</ol>
<h2>Final considerations</h2>
<p>While this post is ostensibly about building a welcome program, it can apply to any automated program you're looking to build out. The process remains the same, even if the goal changes.</p>
<p>It's important to balance your business interests against the interests of the subscriber. While you might want to aggressively push for a sale right from the get-go it's unlikely that a new subscriber will appreciate that approach. This could damage the email channel in the long-term by reducing engagement rates across the board as people unsubscribe and lose interest in being heavily sold to.</p>
<p>One thing you might want to do is ensure that while a subscriber is in your welcome program they don't receive your regular marketing emails - this helps to ensure that they don't get confused or feel inundated by too many mixed messages.</p>
<p>If you have the opportunity to experiment with channels other than email, do so! Email is amazing and powerful, but you can experiment with many more channels. Don't just limit yourself for no reason.</p>
<p>This is just the approach I've found to work for me and brands I've worked for over the years, but I'd love to hear whether you think there's something missing, or if you've found another approach to work better for you. Let me know via email or Twitter at the links below.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://www.experian.com/assets/marketing-services/white-papers/welcome-email-report.pdf">Experian welcome email report</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://mailchimp.com/resources/make-lasting-connections-with-welcome-emails/">How a Lifestyle Brand Makes Lasting Connections with Welcome Emails</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>NPS being a way to measure customer loyalty - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter">Wikipedia article</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>I have no data to hand, but my first job was working for <a href="https://www.espares.co.uk/">eSpares</a>, a spare parts retailer. Emails containing video content consistently outperformed other email types. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn5" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/how-to-use-platforma-in-figma/">Platforma email on Really Good Emails</a>. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fnref5" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn6" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8662312-breakthrough-advertising">Breakthrough Advertising on Goodreads</a>. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fnref6" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn7" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://searchengineland.com/five-ways-to-flip-your-copywriting-for-higher-conversion-rates-157078">Five ways to flip your copywriting for higher conversion rates</a>. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fnref7" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn8" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vbbp5x/no-reply-email-addresses-are-a-plague">No reply email addresses are a plague</a>. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fnref8" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn9" class="footnote-item"><p><a href="https://growthlab.com/how-i-moved-my-pitch-earlier-and-increased-revenue-89/">How I moved my pitch earlier and increased revenue 89%</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/how-to-build-welcome-program/#fnref9" class="footnote-backref">â©ïž</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Predatory Thinking
2020-05-10T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/predatory-thinking/
<p>A collection of banal anecdotes written in the style of a LinkedIn wanker.</p>
<p>Avoid.</p>
Why segmentation isn't always the answer
2020-05-09T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/why-segmentation-isnt-always-the-answer/
<p><em>I originally wrote this in 2017 on another site I ran, before I let it die. Oops. I was recently able to recover this article so I'm posting it again for posterity's sake.</em></p>
<p>I noticed something strange recently, Marketing Land, the well-known sister-site to SEO Land by Third Door Media started cutting down on the number of segmented and specialised newsletters they send.</p>
<p>Over the years, thereâve been a lot of articles written on the need to segment your audiences for your email marketing campaigns, and for the most part, those articles are true.</p>
<p>At its most basic level, list segmentation allows you to send the right content to the right person, ensuring they stay engaged and interested with your brand. This helps boost your key email engagement metrics (opens, clicks, conversions) alongside harder to measure metrics like your deliverability, and even the recipients brand experience.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there are some enormous potential downsides that donât get discussed often enough.</p>
<p>Segmentation takes time, and inevitably that costs money. Not only do you need to request specific data extracts from your database (or your BI team), manipulate your data, work with multiple lists, etc, but you need the time to build out all the different variants and permutations of your email. If you need to A/B test, suddenly your audiences might become too small to give you statistically significant results, particularly if, and you should be doing this, you test for conversions.</p>
<p>Now I know what youâre thinking, your ESP probably handles a lot of that hard work for you, particularly when it comes to generating the user lists you need, but increased sophistication tends to come with added costs and added staff, which can further impact those costs. Another downside to increased segmentation is that we no longer allow our audience to evolve in their interests. Weâve all heard about the social media âecho chamberâ, with feeds being tailored by AI algorithms to deliver things weâve expressed an interest in, but ultimately that just means that our audiences stagnate. They never have the opportunity to discover new concepts or products, they donât have the opportunity to grow.</p>
<p>Are you measuring the associated monetary costs of segmentation (both long and short term) against the perceived benefits? Do you know what the impact on your total macro conversion volumes are by running a segmented campaign? Are you really making use of all those bells and whistles your ESP salespeople told you you absolutely had to have? Iâm willing to bet that the answer to those questions is a resounding no.</p>
<p>Ultimately, as marketers we often find ourselves taking the path of least resistance and relying on established conventions to make our decisions for us. If the industry thought leaders are telling us to do something, it must be true!</p>
<p>We should all take a moment to think about what value weâre really creating for the business and for the people weâre sending emails to. Maybe a simple mass email is just what you need.</p>
The Language Effect
2020-05-04T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-language-effect/
<p>I love what the pholk are Phrasee are doing so had to pick this up.</p>
<p>This then is Parry's call to arms for writers to join the technological revolution and make use of new tools to improve their work, much like VisiCalc did for accountants in '79 and Photoshop did for the creative industry in '90.</p>
<p>It's hard to argue with the premise of the book, copywriting is hard and machines are more than already capable of doing a better job than the average writer. <em>I consider myself significantly below average so I'll take any help I can get.</em></p>
<p>I can't wait to see what Phrasee does next.</p>
Microsoft Editor, an Alternative to Grammarly's Keylogger?
2020-05-03T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/microsoft-editor-grammarly-keylogger/
<p>I'm not going to lie, Grammarly's product is a fantastic one. The ability to check your writing for correctness, clarity, engagement, and delivery is incredibly powerful and can help anyone become a better writer. Whether you just need a simple spellchecker or something more complex like providing common synonyms for words you're overusing.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/grammarly.gif" alt="Grammarly in use" /></p>
<p>I wish I could use it, and not solely because I'm an email geek and Grammarly send super engaging <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/your-weekly-progress-report-2/">activity report emails</a>.</p>
<h2>The Ugly</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, there's a dark side to Grammarly's product - anything you type while using their browser extension gets logged and saved to their servers.</p>
<p>According to their <a href="https://www.grammarly.com/privacy-policy#what-information-does-grammarly-collect-about-me">Privacy Policy</a>, Grammarly collects</p>
<blockquote>
<p>User Content. This consists of all text, documents, or other content or information uploaded, entered, or otherwise transmitted by you in connection with your use of the Services and/or Software.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>But Jacques</em>, I hear you ask. Grammarly say <a href="https://support.grammarly.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003816032-Is-Grammarly-a-keylogger-">they're not a keylogger</a>! I mean sure, by their carefully defined definition they're not, but then they're changing the meaning of the word keylogger to suit their marketing purposes.</p>
<p><strong>Don't believe me?</strong> Here's how the word "keylogger" is defined in the <a href="https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/keylogger">Oxford Learner's Dictionary</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>âa computer program that records all the keys that a user hits so that it is possible to discover secret information such as code words</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not convinced? Here's the definition <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/keylogger">according to Merriam-Webster</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a piece of software that records the signals sent from a keyboard to a computer usually for the purpose of gaining information about the user without the user's knowledge</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Still unconvinced? Here's what <a href="http://dictionary.com/">dictionary.com</a> <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/keylogger">have to say on the subject</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a software program or hardware device that records all keystrokes on a computer keyboard, used either overtly as a surveillance tool or covertly as spyware.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It wouldn't be so bad if you were just using it to spellcheck your documents, but let's face it, we all use the web for a lot more than that.</p>
<h3>But who cares?</h3>
<p>Here's a common scenario, while working from home I'm constantly checking and replying to my emails, Grammarly's ace here, highlighting any typos or mistakes I might make. But that's also where things start going wrong, by typing in someone's email address Grammarly have now automatically collected it and stored it on their servers - without that individual's consent. <em>Sounds like a big ol' GDPR breach to me.</em></p>
<p>Skip forward a couple hours, I'm logging into a service I've not used for a while and can't remember my password, it's long and complicated so I click the toggle to make the password visible. Behind the scenes that toggle has changed the form from <code><input type="password"></code> to <code><input type="text"></code> and with that change, Grammarly can now freely access and store anything I type in that field. <strong>Ruh-roh</strong>.</p>
<h2>Microsoft Editor</h2>
<p><em><strong>So that brings us to Microsoft Editor.</strong></em></p>
<p><a href="https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-blog/introducing-microsoft-editor-bring-out-your-best-writer-wherever/ba-p/1247931#">Introduced on March 30th</a>, <strong>Microsoft Editor</strong> brings many of those great features you've already experienced in Grammarly.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/MicrosoftEditor.png" alt="Microsoft Editor in use" /></p>
<h3>What about their Privacy Policy?</h3>
<p>Microsoft's Privacy Policy is a <em>fucking mess</em> full of gobbledygook legalese. No, seriously, you try make heads or tails of <a href="https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement">this thing</a>.</p>
<p>The closest reference I can find to how Editor falls under their policy is the following.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Microsoft collects data from you, through our interactions with you and through our products. You provide some of this data directly, and we get some of it by collecting data about your interactions, use, and experiences with our products. The data we collect depends on the context of your interactions with Microsoft and the choices you make, including your privacy settings and the products and features you use.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Yeah, that's pretty damn vague...</em></p>
<p>In a move that inspires <em>some</em> confidence, their browser plugin provides a straightforward way to opt out of data collection. Like Grammarly, you can also disable the plugin on specific websites.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/MicrosoftEditorSettings.png" alt="Microsoft Editor browser plugin settings page" /></p>
<h2>Is Microsoft Editor a suitable alternative for Grammarly?</h2>
<p>The long and short of it right now is <em>I don't know</em>.</p>
<p>Their privacy policy is undecipherable and while the product does inspire some degree of confidence with the clear ability to opt-out of data collection it's unclear precisely what you're opting out of and whether that opt-out also prevents the storing of sensitive data on Microsoft's servers.</p>
<p>What is clear is that Grammarly <em>is</em> a keylogger and shouldn't be used without extreme care in a browser environment.</p>
<p>In the short term I'm going to be giving Microsoft Editor a go, while ensuring any sensitive sites are blocked through the available settings.</p>
<p>More to follow, I guess.</p>
Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece
2020-05-03T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/rodin-art-ancient-greece/
<p>I'm gutted I missed this exhibition at the British Museum in 2018 but I suppose this is the next best thing.</p>
<p>Driven by his obsession with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_Marbles">Parthenon Marbles</a> and other ancient artifacts, Rodin created works that bridged the gap between the ancient and the modern.</p>
<p>The book delves into some detail as to how the marbles came to be acquired by Lord Elgin in ~1801, with some political conflict between the British and the French, with Napoleon wanting the sculptures for the recently created Louvre in Paris.</p>
<p>I'd have liked to see a little more context around why Rodin is considered to be one of the most important modern sculptors, and how his reinterpretation of classical works drove modern sculpture in a new direction.</p>
Advertising For Skeptics
2020-05-02T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/advertising-for-skeptics/
<p>If you're not familiar with Bob Hoffman, he's built a brand as <a href="https://twitter.com/adcontrarian">The Ad Contrarian</a> - which should tell you everything you need to know about why I enjoyed this book.</p>
<p>Through a no bullshit approach, Hoffman breaks down many of the delusions marketers and advertisers like to parrot to one another.</p>
<p><strong>No</strong>, people don't want to <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YvlqiJwGe8">join the conversation</a></em> about your brand.</p>
<p><strong>No</strong>, digital marketing doesn't change the fundamental truths in marketing.</p>
<p><strong>No</strong>, a click isn't a meaningful metric.</p>
<p><strong>No</strong>, millenials aren't special.</p>
<p>And many more...</p>
<p>If you've read <a href="http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/">Hoffman's blog</a> before you've likely read many of the short chapters from this book, but this absolutely belongs on your desk or your bookshelf when you need a break from the bullshit you hear all too often around the office.</p>
Plain Text email and the Uncanny Valley
2020-04-30T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/plain-text-uncanny-valley/
<p>If you spend much time on the marketing web you've likely seen plenty of <em>hot takes</em> on the topic of plain text emails, with often wild claims about them being more effective than HTML email from companies with a vested interest in getting you to use their product. <em><a href="https://www.drift.com/blog/plain-text-emails/">Cough, cough.</a></em></p>
<p>The reality is, of course, not so simple as some may claim, particularly when you start talking about an email that's sent to more than one person.</p>
<p>GoSquared wrote a fantastic breakdown of the Uncanny Valley effect they'd observed in some of the emails they received. It's well worth a read, not only as a counterpoint to the plain text email brigade but in improving your email marketing in general.</p>
<p>Can plain text emails work? Absolutely. But avoid the obvious pitfalls and don't unintentionally mislead people when using them.</p>
Never Split the Difference
2020-04-29T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/never-split-the-difference/
<p>I don't have a ton of experience when it comes to negotiation so I think I came away from this one having learnt a few things.</p>
<ol>
<li>Negotiation is about discovery, particularly understanding the other sides desires and needs and trying to uncover any potential "black swans" that stand to flip the negotiation on it's head</li>
<li>We're deeply irrational and easy to influence using a variety of common psychological tricks such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring">mirroring</a> and deploying tactics such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(cognitive_bias)#Anchoring_in_negotiations">price anchoring</a>*</li>
<li>Deadlines, even arbitrary ones can cause people to be impulsive and make mistakes when negotiating</li>
<li>People will take more risks to avoid losses than they will to realise an equivalent gain</li>
<li><em>Fairness</em> is an emotional term that can be easily exploited, it can be used to put the other side on the defensive and gain concessions. To counter it, ask the counterpart accusing you of unfairness to explain how you're mistreating them</li>
<li><em>What</em> and <em>How</em> questions are powerful and can help the counterpart become more empathetic to your position, use it to make them try solve your problems for you <em>"How am I supposed to do that?"</em></li>
</ol>
<p>I particularly appreciated Chris' perspective that negotiation is not about two (or more) people butting heads but about finding common ground in trying to reach a particular objective.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Rule of Three is simply getting the other guy to agree to the same thing three times in the same conversation. Itâs tripling the strength of whatever dynamic youâre trying to drill into at the moment. In doing so, it uncovers problems before they happen. Itâs really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Maybe Fight Club was onto something.</p>
<p>I'm yet to find a better book on the topic, definitely worth a read if you want to learn to be a better negotiator.</p>
<p>*Read <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/thinking-fast-and-slow.html">Thinking Fast and Slow</a> if you want to know more about these.</p>
The Ottoman Endgame
2020-04-22T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/ottoman-endgame/
<p>I don't remember learning much (if anything) about the Ottoman Empire in school history lessons, so this book was definitely an interesting read. I guess it's easier to focus on the Western front where you don't have to have an uncomfortable discussion with 13 year olds about the very real human costs of British (not to forget French, Russian and Italian) imperialism.</p>
<p>The story of the downfall of the Ottoman Empire is one that's bathed in blood, with no country able to hold any sort of moral superiority as all were guilty of acts of genocide. Rough estimates in The Ottoman Endgame claim that the population of the empire went from ~21 million in 1911 to below 17 million by 1923. It's estimated that the mortality rates in the empire were close to <strong>~20%</strong>, a staggering figure compared to the estimated 3.5% mortality rate in France (France having the second highest number of deaths per capita during the first World War, second to the Ottoman Empire).</p>
<p>It's no surprise that even close to a century later, we're still left reeling at the crises that've been caused by Western imperialism in the regions that were once part of the Ottoman Empire.</p>
<p>If, like me, you were never taught this in school, I highly recommend reading <em>The Ottoman Endgame</em>.</p>
Big Tech Digital Consent
2020-04-15T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/big-tech-digital-consent/
<p>Now that we've had the GDPR for a while, studies are starting to emerge around digital consent mechanisms used across the web.</p>
<p>This study takes a look at how consent is handled across 5 of the largest tech businesses, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, taking a particular look at how they deploy assymetric and covert means to lull people into falsely consenting to intrusive tracking.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Two overall distinctions emerge from our empiric analysis: first, only four of the five analysed sites (Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft) make it explicit that users are giving consent to the use of their data in form of a cookie consent banner or a pop-up. Apple required looking for a footer link titled âUse of cookiesâ in order to access information about collected data and find further links to the opt-out process. Second, not all the sites provide an opt-out option for users that either do not have an account or are not signed in. Specifically, Apple does not offer these options and instead urges users to sign in or create an account in order to set privacy preferences. Of the remaining four, Microsoft and Google allow opting out of targeted advertising through their own consent forms, and Amazon and Facebook only provide a link to three consent intermediariesâthe Digital Advertising Alliance5 (for the U.S.), Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada6 and the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance7âwhich provide cookie-based opt-out settings that should span multiple third party websites and data collectors.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I know that in my own work I have often had <em>frustrating</em> conversations with other digital marketers who frequently like to take their lead from what these companies are doing. From this study and observed behaviour in general, it's clear that that is not a good enough approach when wishing to comply with the GDPR.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Considering the empirical results, little evidence has surfaced that suggest the GAFAM web pages were designed with a human-centric perspective to empower users to give their informed consent. On the contrary, the nature of the techniques employed suggest that empowering users is not the main focus of these consent mechanisms. Patterns of coercion that nudge the user towards consenting, strategies of information hiding, covert and confusing interface behavior have been shown to exploit human cognitive weaknesses more than supporting the complex process of consenting to a multitude of data collection and utilization.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It remains to be seen whether the regulatory bodies who are supposed to be enforcing the GDPR will be able to do anything about these flagrant abuses of the law.</p>
Exercising Through the Pandemic
2020-04-14T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/garmin-covid19-exercise/
<p>The folks at Garmin published some interesting data looking at people's exercise habits through the ongoing COVID19 pandemic.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>While the decrease in global movement scratches the surface of whatâs happening, the advanced metrics in millions of Garmin wearable devices give us a deeper understanding of exactly how people are dealing with the impact of the pandemic on their active lifestyles. Weâre observing a remarkable shift in the types of activities people are doing, reflecting an unprecedented about-face when it comes to typical springtime exercise and activity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unsurprisingly, we're seeing a marked shift in how people exercise, with a general decrease in daily activity but with a marked increase in sports like yoga or virtual training sessions using apps like Zwift.</p>
Upstream
2020-04-13T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/upstream/
<p>This one felt like a waste of time. The general topic is an interesting one, that is, solve the root cause of a problem rather than the problem as it pops up. Sadly the execution left a lot to be desired.</p>
<p>There are a few interesting anecdotes sprinkled in here and there but you're unlikely to learn anything revelatory.</p>
<p>Don't waste your money on this.</p>
Boomerang
2020-04-10T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/boomerang/
<p>This is the third book by Michael Lewis I've read this year, after <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/flash-boys.html">Flash Boys</a> and <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-fifth-risk.html">The Fifth Risk</a>.</p>
<p>Like the other books, <em>Boomerang</em> is hugely engaging and explains in simple layman's terms what happened in Iceland, Greece, Ireland and other countries that were particularly affected by the global financial meltdown in '08.</p>
<p>Definitely worth a read if you want to understand how everything started going wrong.</p>
<p>But hey, everything's different now the money print goes brrr, right?</p>
<p>Right?</p>
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
2020-04-06T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism/
<blockquote>
<p>Surveillance capitalism operates through unprecedented asymmetries in knowledge and the power that accrues to knowledge. Surveillance capitalists know everything <em>about us</em>, whereas their operations are designed to be unknowable <em>to us</em>. They accumulate vast domains of new knowledge <em>from us</em>, but not <em>for us</em>. They predict our futures for the sake of others' gain, not ours.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I went into this one with the idea that <em>The Age of Surveillance Capitalism</em> would be all about the dangers of uncontrolled data collection from the common suspects; Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc. In some respects this book is about that, but it's also about a whole lot more.</p>
<p><em>Shoshana Zuboff</em> describes what she calls the <strong>Behavioral Value Reinvestment Cycle</strong>, where <em>data exhaust</em> (data generated as a result of an action being taken, i.e. a particular link on an HTML document is clicked) is deeply analysed and then used to improve a service, which in turn allows for more data exhaust to be generated.</p>
<p>You can see this cycle in use everywhere; cookies, email open pixels, embeddable widgets (Facebook like buttons, etc), Alexa devices (voice recognition training), free photo storage (facial and object recognition), connected cars (a business reported to be worth <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/car-data-business-mckinsey-and-co-report-2016-10?r=UK">$750 billion by 2030</a>), etc.</p>
<p>Where <em>The Age of Surveillance Capitalism</em> got particularly interesting for me was in Chapter Thirteen, when Shoshana starts detailing how this data is being used to alter human behaviour on a global scale. These insights <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/02/facebook-sorry-secret-psychological-experiment-users">aren't new</a>, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's eye opening to start to think about the scale at which these businesses operate and the power and influence they have over the daily experience of billions of people.</p>
<p>In 1948 the psychologist B.F. Skinner created what's now known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber">Skinner Box</a>, a device used to condition a test subject to perform specific actions to receive a reward. It seems we're all now living a life in a Skinner box controlled by big tech, who aim to control our actions to extract as much value from us as they can.</p>
<p><em><strong>I don't think I'll read a better book this year.</strong></em></p>
Zoom - Surveillance by Design
2020-03-29T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/zoom-surveillance-by-design/
<p>Much has already been written about Zoom's meteoric rise as large parts of the world voluntarily quarantine themselves to help combat the spread of COVID-19. A meteoric rise that's all too easy to spot as their share price rises where everyone else's has fallen.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/images/post-images/Zoom.png" alt="Zoom share price graph showing large increase in last 6 months" /></p>
<p>As the quarantine continues however, concerns have started to emerge around Zoom's heavy handed privacy policy and their data exfilatration to numerous adtech partners.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What Zoomâs current privacy policy says is worse than âYou donât have any privacy here.â It says, âWe expose your virtual necks to data vampires who can do what they will with it.â</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Maybe it's time to invest in a <a href="https://pi-hole.net/">pi-hole</a>?</p>
Bad Science - Why We Sleep
2020-03-27T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/bad-science-why-we-sleep/
<p>You might have heard about the blockbuster success that was <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep">Why We Sleep</a>, but what you might not have heard is how the book is based on bad science.</p>
<p>Renowned statistician <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Gelman">Andrew Gelman</a> looks at the institutional failures behind the book.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So, yes, when the University of California hears about research misconduct by their faculty and sweeps it under the rug, this can keep their reputation afloat (after all, how many people read this blog? And even the people who read this can just say itâs me being cranky) and they can keep raking in that sweet, sweet indirect cost recovery from government grants. But theyâre letting the side down. Theyâre not doing their part as a component of the scholarly enterprise.</p>
</blockquote>
What are "toast" messages?
2020-03-26T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/toast-messages/
<p>This is the toast masterclass you didn't know you needed.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In current user interface terms a toast is a message that appears on the screen; it is often short, often appears only briefly, and often animates up from the bottom (like a piece of ghostly yet precisely-crafted toast), though other directions and a fade-in/-out is common.</p>
</blockquote>
The Fifth Risk
2020-03-21T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-fifth-risk/
<p>I really enjoyed Michael Lewis' <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/flash-boys.html">Flash Boys</a> which I read a couple months ago so figured I'd give this one a try.</p>
<p><em>The Fifth Risk</em> is all about Trump's government, which famously <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/trump-transition-cabinet-behind-schedule/511928/">transitioned poorly</a> following Trump's election and subsequent inauguration.</p>
<p>This book tells the stories of former government employees who were on unknown but crucial projects that helped to protect the lives of tens of millions of Americans. From the Coast Guard to the Department of Agriculture.</p>
<p>It also highlights the dangers of the new staffers who came in to replace those departing staff, with numerous conflicts of interest and shortsightedness to the point of willful criminality.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If your ambition is to maximize short-term gain without regard to the long-term cost, you are better off not knowing the cost. If you want to preserve your personal immunity to the hard problems, itâs better never to really understand those problems. There is an upside to ignorance, and a downside to knowledge. Knowledge makes life messier. It makes it a bit more difficult for a person who wishes to shrink the world to a worldview.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Highly recommend this one for anyone trying to understand the importance of the federal government in the US and the thankless but crucial work that government employees do.</p>
Delusions Of Brandeur
2020-03-21T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/delusions-of-brandeur/
<p><strong>Do you feel like modern marketing is full of bullshit?</strong> <em>Delusions of Brandeur</em> is the cure to that. In a short (I read it in a couple hours) package, this proves to be a pithy antidote to the overwhelming amounts of shit we're inundated under on a daily basis.</p>
<p>If you follow <a href="https://twitter.com/Dr_Draper">Ryan's Twitter</a> you've probably already read a significant chunk of this book. Don't let that deter you, it's worth keeping on your desk and handing to a colleague when they start veering off into bullshit land.</p>
The Money Machine
2020-03-15T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/the-money-machine/
<p>With everything going on in the world right now, it seems prudent to at least try to understand how the global economy works.</p>
<p><em>The Money Machine</em> will help you understand exactly what the Bank of England does, what the money markets are and why inflation and interest rates should matter to you.</p>
<p>Now is not a time to be fiscally uneducated.</p>
On War
2020-03-11T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/on-war/
<blockquote>
<p>War is nothing but the continuation of policy by other means</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm not going to lie, I found <em>On War</em> incredibly frustrating and tedious to read.</p>
<p>Firstly, the topic is generally quite an unpleasant one. War is neither fun nor entertaining and it's certainly not lighthearted.</p>
<p>Secondly, this was first published in 1832, which becomes abundantly evident when you have to read loooooooooong sentences, like:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Only this explains why in war men have so often successfully emerged in the higher ranks,and even as supreme commanders, whose former field of endeavour was entirely different; the fact, indeed, that distinguished commanders have never emerged from the ranks of the most erudite or scholarly officers, but have been for the most part men whose station in life could not have brought them a high degree of education.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>That's not to say it's without merit</strong> - it's a classic for good reason. While the topic at hand is one that isn't going to be relevant to the overwhelming majority of us (đ€) there are a numbers of lessons to be learnt and extrapolations that can be applied to modern life.</p>
<p>The quote above, for example, is an interesting one. It draws parallels to the myth of the "college dropout" startup founder that we see all too often today.</p>
<p><em>On War</em> didn't really click for me until I reached Book 8 (On War is itself split into 8 books). Specifically, how war has changed historically in terms of available resources and what war is really about.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The aim of war in conception must always be the overthrow of the enemy; this is the fundamental idea from which we set out.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>With MAD an assumed given between major world powers, does modern warfare look like what we're seeing online? With nation states using online tools and platforms to destabilise and demoralise other nations?</p>
<p>I wouldn't recommend this to most people, but it's an interesting read if you want to understand some of the concepts behind a lot of business strategy books. For most people you'd be better off reading <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/good-strategy-bad-strategy.html">Good Strategy/Bad Strategy</a> by Richard P. Rumelt.</p>
Shoe Dog
2020-03-04T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/shoe-dog/
<p>Man, Phil Knight does <em>not</em> come across as likeable in this at all.</p>
<p>Admirable, yes, absolutely, and maybe that's why Shoe Dog is such a compelling read. I knew less than nothing about the history of Nike before picking this up, but in a short ~400 pages Phil Knight introduces the cast and the events that turned the business into the $113 billion behemoth it is today.</p>
<p>What I found interesting about <em>Shoe Dog</em> was how it explored Phil's growing maturity, which seemed to march in lockstep with Nike's success. He's deeply self-critical and doesn't gloss over his numerous mistakes and failures. Very refreshing in a business memoir.</p>
<p>Maybe don't marry your students though...</p>
You're a Lab-Rat for Big Tech
2020-02-25T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/youre-lab-rat-big-tech/
<p>Every day, hundreds of thousands of people become unwitting subjects to big tech's testing whims.</p>
<p>A word here, a word there, maybe the change of a colour, or the layout of a product page, everything measured, recorded and collated to better serve the interests of brands trying to make you stay on their side, trying to sell you products you didn't know you needed, trying to influence you.</p>
<p>Experimentation is conducted without knowledge and certainly without consent - often at the detriment to the end-user. You.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Consider an experiment that StubHub, the ticket-resale company, ran to determine where best to notify users about its ticketing costs. Should it be up front about them from the moment you land on the page? Or surprise you at checkout? StubHub discovered, after experimenting, that hiding the fees until the last minute led to thirteen per cent more sales, plus tickets that were 5.73 per cent more expensive on average.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This behaviour is unlikely to change, in fact it's even desirable in many cases where testing can bring about positive change. But there's a desperate need for more transparency in big tech.</p>
<p>Consumers need to understand what they're being exposed to and what that testing is doing to them.</p>
Bloomberg Ad Spending
2020-02-24T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/bloomberg-ad-spending/
<p>Been seeing a few Mike Bloomberg ads recently? You're not the only one...</p>
<p>Bloomberg's ad spending is collosal. But how is that different from any of the other Presidential candidates for the upcoming US elections?</p>
<p>Well, take a look at this data viz from Washington Post to truly wrap your head around the scale of it.</p>
<p>For context, Trump's campaign has spent $19 million so far across digital and tv, Bloomberg has spent a staggering $233 million.</p>
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Change Management
2020-02-23T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/hbr-10-reads-on-change-management/
<p>I recently read <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/hbr-10-reads-on-communication.html">HBR's 10 Must Reads on Communication</a>, unfortunately this one was rather disappointing in comparison.</p>
<p>This book is part of Harvard Business Review's <em>10 Must Reads</em> series and highlights 10 of the best essays and articles on Change Management published in HBR over the years. I'm shocked if this was the best they could find as I can only describe this collection as lacklustre.</p>
<p>The only real standout was <em>Radical Change, the Quiet Way</em> by Debra E. Meyerson, which describes how <em>Tempered Radicals</em> can push through organisational change via 4 simple tactics:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Disruptive Self-Expression</strong> - making yourself into a positive talking point in the office through differentiation from the status quo</li>
<li><strong>Verbal Jujitsu</strong> - <em>(what is it with consultants and confrontational fetishism?)</em> redirecting negative statements and actions into positive change</li>
<li><strong>Variable-Term Opportunism</strong> - Look towards the long-term but don't be afraid to capitalise on short-term opportunities when they present themselves</li>
<li><strong>Strategic Alliance Building</strong> - Work with allies, learn from opponents in the organisation to deliver change.</li>
</ol>
<p>This is really the only article worth reading out of the 10 in this book, so <a href="https://hbr.org/2001/10/radical-change-the-quiet-way">read it online</a> instead.</p>
Post GDPR Dark Patterns - A Study of Cookie Consent Notices
2020-02-22T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/gdpr-dark-patterns-cookie-consent-study/
<p>Since the GDPR went into effect it's hard to navigate the web without an endless barrage of "consent" notices asking you to agree to being tracked by unanmed third parties.</p>
<p>This study looks to understand current user interface trends in Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) and how these designs affect the validity of the obtained "consent".</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We found that dark patterns and implied consent are ubiquitous; only 11.8% meet the minimal requirements that we set based on European law. Second, we conducted a field experiment with 40 participants to investigate how the eight most common designs affect consent choices. We found that notification style (banner or barrier) has no effect; removing the opt-out button from the first page increases consent by 22â23 percentage points; and providing more granular controls on the first page decreases consent by 8â20 percentage points.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I'd love to see more studies in this area and I hope regulators are keeping their eyes peeled. Focusing regulatory and enforcement action on CMP's would certainly act as a catalyst in increasing legitimately obtained consent across the web due to the complexity of rolling your own CMP.</p>
Writing Usefully
2020-02-21T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/writing-usefully/
<p>I still find writing quite a clumsy and difficult activity, but Paul fantastically articulates how to write effectively, which in this instance is about being <em>useful</em>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you narrow the topic sufficiently, you can probably find something you're an expert on. Write about that to start with. If you only have ten readers who care, that's fine. You're helping them, and you're writing. Later you can expand the breadth of topics you write about.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As in most cases, the best advice is often the most obvious one.</p>
Hooked
2020-02-20T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/hooked/
<p>Given some of the other reviews I'd read for <em>Hooked</em> I was expecting to have a visceral dislike of this book, but the reality turned out to be a whole lot blander.</p>
<p>Hooked is all about what Eyal calls "The Hook Model", which is a 4 stage process into turning your product into a habit-creating machine.</p>
<p>That is the:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Trigger</strong> - The cue the user receives to perform a specific action</li>
<li><strong>Action</strong> - The action you want the user to perform</li>
<li><strong>Variable Reward</strong> - The reward for performing an action</li>
<li><strong>Investment</strong> - Make the user anticipate a future reward</li>
</ol>
<p>These stages are all fairly self explanatory and won't be of much surprise to anyone who's already familiar with common marketing and behavioural psychology concepts.</p>
<p>The case study on a Christian Bible app seemed rather on the nose given the general concept is to do with exploiting unconscious processes to elicit specific targeted behaviours.</p>
<p>Ultimately, while the content is inoffensive, I would have liked Eyal to make more of a point about the moral and ethical considerations when trying to deploy this model into your product.</p>
<p>It's a quick read, so you're not going to lose much reading this, you're also probably not going to get a ton out of it either.</p>
Friction in SaaS Signup Flows
2020-02-19T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/saas-signup-friction/
<p>A great look at the role of friction in SaaS signup flows, with examples from Mailchimp, Slack, Pinterest and more.</p>
Self Disclosure and the Monetary Value of Clear Privacy Policies
2020-02-19T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/self-disclosure-personalisation-effectiveness/
<p>This study from the Journal of Business Research provides some significant evidence towards the efficacy of personalisation and the role that adequately disclosing privacy concerns can have on customer's willingness to disclose personal information for personalisation and marketing purposes.</p>
<p>The study conducted in partnership with a retailer invited 120,000 of their customers to participate in a survey and subsequently were given coupons via a personalised SMS as a reward for their participation.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>First, the act of self-disclosure had a significant in-cremental impact on customers' purchase responses to personalized promotions, those who participated in self-disclosure had spent 34.01CNY per week more than those who had not self-disclosed. Second, the intensity of self-disclosure also had a positive effect on purchase responses in the personalized promotion stage. The more information that customers disclosed to the firm, the more likely they were to make a purchase when they received the later personalized promotion. Third, a prior combination of privacy assurance and personalization declaration encouraged customers to participate in the self-disclosure stage, leading to a 19% increase in the act of self-disclosure and a 5% increase in the intensity of self-disclosure.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This study sets some great groundwork and I hope to see more research in this area in the near future. For now it's given me a lot to think about in terms of how we can better communicate our privacy policies at work and how we can go about collection consent for various types of data collection.</p>
Everybody Writes
2020-02-18T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/everybody-writes/
<p>Thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/IAmElliot">Elliot</a> for the reccomendation on this one!</p>
<p>I find writing hard, like, <em>really hard</em>, so this book was definitely something I needed to read.</p>
<p>I really enjoyed the way Ann writes clearly and succinctly about writing, with the first chunk of rules being no-brainers that nevertheless are hard to do consistently and ruthlessly. Speaking of rules, there are 74 in total.</p>
<p>I found some of the rules particularly useful:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Rule 23 - Avoid writing by committee</strong> - I particularly liked Ann's advice to ask for approval rather than asking for suggestions when seeking sign-off on a piece of creative work. Applicable pretty much everywhere.</li>
<li><strong>Rule 36 - Avoid these mistakes marketers make</strong> - Stop trying to shoehorn in "professional" sounding words and instead aim to be clear in your writing. Think "Remains" rather than "continues to be".</li>
<li><strong>Rule 38 - Learn words you're probably misusing or confusing with other words</strong> - Disinterested and uninterested don't mean the same thing.</li>
</ul>
<p>Some other things I found a little less useful. Knowing about Google Authorship in SERP's was useful in 2014, 6 years ago. It's not of any real relevance now. Of course, Ann couldn't predict the future when this book was published, but <em>rule 55</em> does mention "try to avoid anything older than four years, since it's likely to be stale".</p>
<p>Minor quibbles aside, and they are minor, this is a great reference book and a worthwhile purchase if you want to overcome your fear of writing.</p>
The Chartmaker Directory
2020-02-18T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/chartmaker-directory/
<p>The Chartmaker Directory is a great resource showing all the different types of charts individual data visualisation tools can create, with examples of those charts in action.</p>
<p>Useful both when trying to do research on tools to use for data visualisation but also to familiarise yourself with more esoteric chart types you might not already be familiar with.</p>
Cheap Website Personalisation With Google Optimize
2020-02-17T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/google-optimize-personalisation/
<p>Did you know you can use Google Optimize to personalise your website?</p>
<p>This great article from Conversion XL shares tips and best practices for implementing Optimize on your website and common pitfalls you might encounter in the process. Personalisation based on geolocation and whether the visitor has previously been on your site or not seem like particularly useful experiments to run.</p>
Geofencing Gets Political
2020-02-17T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/geofencing-spatial-politics/
<p>I've been a subscriber to Geoff Manaugh's BLDGBLOG for about a decade now (since reading <a href="http://www.bldgblog.com/2008/04/gamespace-an-interview-with-daniel-dociu/">this article</a>, in fact) and I've always loved his takes on architecture and the societal applications and implications of space in general.</p>
<p>This time, Geoff looks at an embedded device that could be used to geofence heavy machinery, to limit their use in environmentally at-risk areas, but also to explore potential future dystopian uses of the technology.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You can easily imagine, for example, a dystopian scenario in which geofenced medical prostheses cease to operate when they cross an invisible GPS boundary into an unserviced regionâperhaps as a way to protect the host company from the illegal installation of black-market, security-compromised firmware updates, but with immediate and perhaps fatal health effects on the user. Or, say, regions of a metropolisâperhaps near centers of governance or military installationsâwhere civilian vehicles or unregistered photographic equipment of a particular resolution can no longer physically function.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As if Bluetooth low energy beacons weren't already a nefarious enough technology.</p>
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Communication
2020-02-15T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/hbr-10-reads-on-communication/
<p>Harvard Business Review's <em>10 Must Reads</em> series highlights ten of the best articles posted on Harvard Business Review on a specific topic. <em>On Communication</em> seemed like a fairly interesting one and it didn't entirely disappoint.</p>
<p>Specifically, four of the ten articles are absolutely worth a read.</p>
<p><em><strong>The Necessary Art of Persuasion</strong></em> by <em>Jay A. Conger</em> is exactly what it sounds like â covering different methods of framing a conversation to try persuade someone that your cause/goal/whatever is worthy. It's something I often struggle with in a professional setting so was absolutely worth the read for me, although highlighting Microsoft's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob">BOB</a> as one of the case studies really shows the article's age.</p>
<p><em><strong>Is Silence Killing Your Company</strong></em> by <em>Leslie Perlow</em> and <em>Stephanie Williams</em> is what I'd consider a <em>must-read</em>, which highlight how failures to communicate can kill productivity and morale within a company. If you read anything in this book, read this one. <a href="https://hbr.org/2003/05/is-silence-killing-your-company">Or read it online</a>.</p>
<p><em><strong>Telling Tales</strong></em> by <em>Stephen Denning</em> was interesting, highlighting the value of storytelling and when to use a narrative to highlight successes or failures that can be learnt from.</p>
<p>Finally <em><strong>How to Pitch a Brilliant Idea</strong></em> by <em>Kimberly D. Elsbach</em> is about different strategies one can use to pitch an idea, with advice for both the pitcher and the catcher (the recipient of the pitch).</p>
<p>Put these articles together and I think you can learn a lot about how to communicate effectively, both within a business setting but more broadly in your every day life as well.</p>
<p>You don't have to buy the book, but I'd absolutely recommend reading the four articles highlighted above if you can. Links below for your convenience.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://hbr.org/1998/05/the-necessary-art-of-persuasion">The Necessary Art of Persuasion</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hbr.org/2003/05/is-silence-killing-your-company">Is Silence Killing Your Company</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hbr.org/2004/05/telling-tales">Telling Tales</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hbr.org/2003/09/how-to-pitch-a-brilliant-idea">How to Pitch a Brilliant Idea</a></li>
</ul>
Military Maps
2020-02-14T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/military-maps/
<p>Taken from the Royal Collection Trust, this collections makes available ~3,000 maps taken from George III's personal collection, mapping more than 300 years of European conflict.</p>
Good gamers, good managers?
2020-02-14T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/good-gamers-good-managers-civilization/
<p>An interesting study from the Review of Managerial Science which looks at gaming performance and it's potential correlation with real world problem solving performance.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Under controlled laboratory conditions, we asked forty business students to play the Civilization game and to participate in a series of assessment exercises. We find that students who had high scores in the game had better skills related to problem-solving and organizing and planning than the students who had low scores.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Maybe a gaming session should be part of the interview process for manager-level roles?</p>
Inside Mark Zuckerberg's Lost Notebook
2020-02-13T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/inside-zuckerberg-lost-notebook/
<p>Fantastic article from Wired telling the story of Mark Zuckerberg's notebooking habit, and some of the key facts about early Facebook that have emerged.</p>
<p>Most of these notebooks have since been destroyed as Zuckerberg seeks to claim back his own privacy, but the few tidbits that remain offer some great insights into how his brain works and what he thought was acceptable in building a ~600 million dollar business.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In 2010, it introduced Instant Personalization, a privacy-busting feature that gave more personal information to outside app developers. Time and again, over internal objections, Zuckerberg chose growth and competitive advantage over caution and privacy-consciousness. The result was a series of hasty apologies, not to mention charges and a $5 billion fine from the Federal Trade Commission.</p>
</blockquote>
The Future of Technology and Marketing
2020-02-13T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/future-technology-marketing/
<p>From a technological standpoint, marketing is ever evolving. This editorial letter from the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science looks at what those potential future evolutions could look like.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But the âbig data revolution,â just like any revolution, may sow some discontent, especially in relation to data security. In this sense, the goal should not be bigger data but instead better data, informed by both the science of machine learning, robotics, and AI and the art of marketing and creativity. Consider predictive analytics as an example. It begins with data, which today are massive and high in velocity, including tweets, blogs, loyalty card transactions, eye-tracking, and so forth. Using tools such as Bayesian inference, marketers can observe billions of page views, then creatively apply the insights they gain from these big data to estimate peopleâs price sensitivity, product preferences, or likely next steps on the customer journey.</p>
</blockquote>
Thinking Fast and Slow
2020-02-12T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/thinking-fast-and-slow/
<p>Anchoring, Priming, the Halo Effect, Loss Aversion, the Endowment Effect; if you work in marketing, these are likely all concepts you've heard about and have some degree of familiarity with, but how do they work and why?</p>
<p>This is another one I don't know why I left so late to read, weighing in at a mere ~400 pages <em>Thinking Fast and Slow</em> explains some of the key concepts that makes our brains tick.</p>
<p>It also serves as a fantastic introduction to unconscious processing and the different systems at work in decision making.</p>
<p>Knowing these things can be used for good, as in knowing how to phrase something to help someone, or it can be used for ill, as in helping to convince people to buy shit they don't need.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Absolutely worth reading this back to back and taking extensive notes.</p>
Martechbase
2020-02-12T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/martechbase/
<p>If you're familiar with marketing technology you've almost definitely come across Scott Brinker's <a href="https://chiefmartec.com/2019/04/marketing-technology-landscape-supergraphic-2019/">MarTech Landscape graphics</a> over the last few years.</p>
<p>Martechbase provides a new way to explore that graphic, with descriptions and links for more than 7,000 marketing tools.</p>
How Users Engage With Chrome Push Notification Prompts
2020-02-12T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/chrome-push-notifications-prompts/
<p>I've <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/20200115-goodbye-browser-push-notifications.html">previously mentioned</a> my love of desktop browser notifications đ.</p>
<p>As it turns out, Google just added UX data around push notification prompt interactions across more than 30,000 websites to their Chrome User Experience Report.</p>
<p>Rick Viscomi has unpacked some of the key insights from the data which likely won't surprise you. It's certainly worth a read though.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is a <em>huge</em> difference in engagement between phones and desktops. Phone users are very unlikely to ignore the prompt, whereas desktop users ignore the prompt about half the time on average. The simplest explanation is screen size; it's a lot harder to ignore a prompt when it's taking up a larger portion of your screen.</p>
</blockquote>
How McKinsey Destroyed the Middle Class
2020-02-11T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/how-mckinsey-destroyed-the-middle-class/
<p>The loss of the middle class should concern all of us, with Mckinsey and their ilk (Bain and BCG) responsible for decimating the middle class workforce while simultaneously creating more demand for their own services.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Management consultants insist that meritocracy required the restructuring that they encouragedâthat, as Kiechel put it dryly, âwe are not all in this together; some pigs are smarter than other pigs and deserve more money.â Consultants seek, in this way, to legitimate both the job cuts and the explosion of elite pay. Properly understood, the corporate reorganizations were, then, not merely technocratic but ideological. Rather than simply improving management, to make American corporations lean and fit, they fostered hierarchy, making management, in David Gordonâs memorable phrase, âfat and mean.â</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Worth a read if only to understand the precarious position society finds itself in as a result of income inequalities.</p>
Welcome to Inkfolio
2020-02-09T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/welcome-to-inkfolio/
<p>Something I've been working on.</p>
<p>Let me know what you think?</p>
Ways of Curating
2020-02-06T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/ways-of-curating/
<p>Curating seems to have lost it's meaning in recent years, everyone is curating a blog, a social feed, a podcast, a blog, whatever.</p>
<p><em>Ways of Curating</em> is about art curation, but mostly it's about building relationships. Relationships between artists, between people, and the impact that exhibitions can go on to have to people around the world.</p>
How Much Does Our Language Determine Behaviour?
2020-02-05T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/does-language-determine-behaviour/
<p>Does the language you speak determine your behaviour? This excerpt from <em>Donât Believe a Word: The Surprising Truth About Language</em> a book recently published by David Shariatmadari certainly seems to suggest so.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If your mother tongue teaches you that keys are categorized as masculine, your idea of âkeyâ is infused with what are judged masculine qualities in your cultureâand this applies even when youâre using another (genderless) language.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Having grown up lucky enough to be bilingual, the relationship between language and behaviour is something that's interested me for a long time.</p>
<p>Guess that's another book to add to my to-read pile.</p>
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy
2020-02-04T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/good-strategy-bad-strategy/
<p>This is one of the better strategy books I've read recently - while there's always some vague allusions and metaphors looking at military history and ancient battles in books of this genre, <em>Good Strategy/Bad Strategy</em> is light on those and heavy on what I actually care about, business strategy.</p>
<p>Rumelt sums up a <strong>good strategy</strong> as the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>A good diagnosis of the issue at hand and the underlying opportunities that are available</li>
<li>A guiding policy that allows you to exploit those opportunities</li>
<li>A set of actions that enable you to carry out the guiding policy</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Bad strategy</strong> on the other hand can be characterised as:</p>
<ol>
<li>Meaningless "fluffy" words that say a lot while simultaneously saying nothing, see also <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Thought">New Thought</a></li>
<li>An inability to adapt to the challenge</li>
<li>Mistaking goals as strategy</li>
<li>Failing to indentify issues or available opportunities</li>
</ol>
<p>To be honest, any book that dumps on New Thought is going to be a-ok with me.</p>
Google Maps Hack
2020-02-03T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/google-maps-hack/
<p>Through the use of 99 smartphones and a hand-pulled cart, artist Simon Weckert has found a way to manipulate our virtual world, and in turn manipulate people's experience of the real world.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>" 99 second hand smartphones are transported in a handcart to generate virtual traffic jam in Google Maps.Through this activity, it is possible to turn a green street red which has an impact in the physical world by navigating cars on another route to avoid being stuck in traffic. " #googlemapshacks</p>
</blockquote>
Some Thoughts on the New ICO Direct Marketing Guidance
2020-02-02T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/ico-direct-marketing-guidance-thoughts/
<p>The ICO recently published a draft code for consultation of their direct marketing code of practice, which provides some great insights into how the ICO believe GDPR and PECR should be applied with relation to Direct Marketing.</p>
<p>If you're interested, you can read the draft and provide feedback by March 4th <a href="https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/ico-and-stakeholder-consultations/ico-consultation-on-the-draft-direct-marketing-code-of-practice">here</a>.</p>
<h2>What is Direct marketing?</h2>
<p>The ICO defines Direct Marketing in the DPA 2018 as following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>ââdirect marketingâ means the communication (by whatever means) of advertising or marketing material which is directed to particular individualsâ</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So this means:</p>
<ol>
<li>Email marketing</li>
<li>SMS Marketing</li>
<li>Push Notification marketing</li>
<li>Physical mailing</li>
<li>Phone calls</li>
<li>In-app messaging</li>
<li>Advertising (where people are targeted specifically)</li>
<li>Remarketing (via cookie, pixel, or other data sources)</li>
<li>Other emerging channels that can fit the definition of direct marketing</li>
</ol>
<p>Specifically, this guidance calls out the fact that not only does both the GDPR and PECR apply to the activity of direct marketing but also to any underlying data processing that enables that activity.</p>
<p>This can mean processing activities like:</p>
<ol>
<li>lead generation</li>
<li>data enrichment</li>
<li>data cleansing</li>
<li>audience segmentation</li>
<li>asking for marketing consent</li>
<li>etc</li>
</ol>
<p>There's a lot to unpack here, but what's important to understand is that this guidance makes it clear that the guidelines are quite broad and expands the definition of direct marketing beyond what a lot of us are typically used to.</p>
<h2>What Isn't direct Marketing?</h2>
<p>This one's a bit easier, essentially if an "individual" is not the target for the direct marketing activity, such as for a postal mailing targeted at a general geographic area, a magazine insert or a general advert shown to everyone such as a billboard or some online banners.</p>
<p>The guidance also clearly calls out "service messages", which constitutes messages sent for administrative or customer service purposes. For example an order confirmation email. However you must be careful and ensure your "service message" is not in fact a marketing message.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In order to determine whether a communication is a service message or a direct marketing message, a key factor is likely to be the phrasing, tone and context.</p>
<p>If a message is actively promoting or encouraging an individual to make use of a particular service, special offer, or upgrade for example, then it is likely to be direct marketing. However if the message has a neutral tone and simply informs the individual for example of a benefit on their account then these are more likely to be viewed as a service message.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The Importance of Planning</h2>
<p>One of the key principles of the GDPR is "data protection by design and default" and this remains important when planning your Direct marketing activities.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You must be clear which legislation applies to your direct marketing activities so you can follow all the relevant rules. In some cases only the GDPR or only PECR will apply, but in other circumstances both may apply. For example, if you are processing personal data when sending direct marketing by electronic message or when using cookies (or similar technologies) for direct marketing purposes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some things you should consider at this stage are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Who is your audience? Are you targeting individuals or business contacts?</li>
<li>What personal data is necessary to carry out your planned marketing activities?</li>
<li>How do you plan on securing any data you collect?</li>
<li>Will personal data be transferred overseas?</li>
<li>How do you plan on supporting individuals' rights with regards to their data?</li>
<li>How long do you plan on retaining data?</li>
<li>How are you going to ensure that your direct marketing activity is going to be lawful?</li>
</ol>
<p>If you're planning on carrying out certain "high risk" activities, you'll need to complete a data protection impact assessment (DPIA)</p>
<ol>
<li>Large scale profiling</li>
<li>Invisible processing (i.e. with cookies or other tracking tools)</li>
<li>Targeting if you deal with vulnerable individuals such as children</li>
<li>Behavioural tracking</li>
</ol>
<p><em>If in doubt, carry out a DPIA.</em></p>
<h2>What's a lawful basis for data processing?</h2>
<p>The GDPR lays out 6 lawful basis for data processing:</p>
<ol>
<li>Consent</li>
<li>Contract</li>
<li>Legal obligation</li>
<li>Vital Interests</li>
<li>Public task</li>
<li>Legitimate interests</li>
</ol>
<p>More specifically, the two you're likely to be looking at are Consent and Legitimate Interest.</p>
<p>One thing that's odd here is that the ICO seem to be pushing marketers into using Legitimate Interest rather than Consent, as using Consent as your lawful basis implies you need Consent for all other processing that occurs to make the Direct Marketing activity possible.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>PECR requires consent for some methods of sending direct marketing. If PECR requires consent, then processing personal data for electronic direct marketing purposes is unlawful under the GDPR without consent. If you have not got the necessary consent, you cannot rely on legitimate interests instead.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One thing to note is if you're using Consent you'll need to keep records of those consent actions, if you're using Legitimate Interest you should document how it applies to your processing.</p>
<h3>Consent</h3>
<p>Consent must conform to the GDPR definition, that is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>âany freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject's wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or herâ</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong><em>Soft opt-in is not Consent.</em></strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Pre-ticked opt-in boxes are banned under the GDPR. You cannot rely on silence, inactivity or default settings â consent must be separate, freely given, unambiguous and affirmative. Failing to opt-out of direct marketing is not valid consent.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3>Legitimate Interests</h3>
<p>If you're not using Consent as your basis for processing, you'll likely be using Legitimate Interests, which are defined as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>âprocessing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child.â</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You'll typically want to look at whether your processing meets the purpose, necessity and balancing tests by carrying out a legitimate interests assessment (LIA).</p>
<p>When GDPR came out, Recital 47 turned a lot of heads in the industry with the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>ââŠThe processing of personal data for direct marketing purposes may be regarded as carried out for a legitimate interest.â</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What's important is an emphasis on may be. You still need to prove that processing data for Direct Marketing under a Legitimate Interest basis meets the prior criteria. I can't stress enough how important it is to conduct a LIA here.</p>
<p>The ICO also call out instances where it's going to specifically be hard to use Legitimate Interest as your basis for processing. These scenarios are:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>processing for direct marketing purposes that you have not told individuals about (ie invisible processing) and they would not expect;</p>
<p>collecting and combining vast amounts of personal data from various different sources to create personality profiles on individuals to use for direct marketing purposes.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Lead Generation</h2>
<p>The ICO definition here isn't going to rock any boats.</p>
<ol>
<li>Individuals who buy your products or support your cause, ie those who have a direct relationship with your brand</li>
<li>Third parties who sell of rent contact lists</li>
<li>Data you scrape from publicly available sources</li>
</ol>
<p>At all times, you'll need to make sure that your processing continues to be fair, lawful and transparent.</p>
<p>Regardless of the way you're going to be generating leads, make sure you have a publicly accessible privacy policy that outlines exactly how and why you're processing people's data for lead generation.</p>
<p>One thing to note is that if you're collecting data from sources other than directly from the individual in question, you should tell them the source of the data you're using, within at most a month of you acquiring the data.</p>
<p>If it's disproportionately difficult to tell an individual what you're collecting and how you're using that data, you must specify as such in your privacy policy - <em>personally I think you should change your business practices</em>.</p>
<p>When collecting data for direct marketing purposes, make sure you're not being vague as to the purpose for which you're collecting the data.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You need to clearly explain the purposes for which you want to process the individualâs personal data for. Vague terms such as âmarketing purposesâ, âmarketing servicesâ or âmarketing insightsâ are not sufficiently clear. These terms are wide and potentially cover all sorts of processing for direct marketing purposes such as sending direct marketing messages, profiling or analysing individualâs behaviours.</p>
<p>If you find it difficult to explain what you will be doing with peopleâs personal data, or you do not want to be transparent because you think they might object to that processing, then this is a clear sign that you should rethink your intended purpose or processing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In any case, be clear and upfront when collecting data, if you're collecting data from other sources, you will need to make sure it is brought to the individual's attention.</p>
<h3>List purchase or rental</h3>
<p>This one's pretty clear cut.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is important to remember that you are responsible for ensuring compliance with the GDPR and PECR. Simply accepting a third partyâs assurances that the data they are supplying is compliant is not enough. You must be able to demonstrate your compliance and be accountable</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Make sure you're carrying out appropriate due diligence when renting or purchasing data.</p>
<h2>Profiling and Data Enrichment</h2>
<p>You're likely using profiling when you carry out segmentation for your direct marketing campaigns, or when thinking about automated personalisation, for example, what products to promote to an individual.</p>
<p>Be careful if you're using Legitimate Interest as your basis for profiling an individual</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If explicit consent is not required and you are considering using legitimate interests as your lawful basis, you need to give careful consideration to the three-part test. It is unlikely that you will be able to apply legitimate interests for intrusive profiling for direct marketing purposes. This type of profiling is not generally in an individualâs reasonable expectations and is rarely transparent enough.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most of us are unlikely to fall afoul of the rules regarding automated profiling that may have legal or otherwise significant effect on an individual, if you do, probably stop reading this and go speak to a lawyer instead.</p>
<p>Matching or appending data is unlikely to be fair.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In most instances, buying additional contact details for your existing customers or supporters is likely to be unfair, unless the individual has expressly agreed.</p>
<p>This is likely to be true no matter how clearly you explain it in your privacy information that you might seek out further personal data about individuals from third parties. This is because it removes peopleâs choice about what channels you can contact them on for direct marketing purposes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Data cleansing and tracing services are unlikely to be fair to individuals.</em></p>
<p>If you're using third parties to help you profile or enrich data, you are accountable for this and must ensure those third parties are appropriately compliant.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A reputable third party should be able to demonstrate to you that the data is compliant. If they cannot do this, or if you are not satisfied with their explanations, you should not use the data.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Don't forget to tell affected individuals that you're using profiling or enrichment services in a clear and far manner with an adequate lawful basis.</p>
<h2>Direct marketing</h2>
<p>Now we get to the interesting stuff...</p>
<h3>DM by Post</h3>
<p>Covered under the GDPR, not PECR.</p>
<p>Don't try to be sneaky, the ICO are onto you.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you conduct a mail drop addressed to âthe householderâ or âthe occupierâ this is unlikely to constitute direct marketing because it is not directed to a particular individual. However you cannot use this as a way to get around the GDPR. If you process an individualâs data to target them with advertising, merely omitting that individualâs name from the final marketing communication does not prevent the processing being for direct marketing purposes.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3>DM by Live Call</h3>
<p>Depending on the type of call, PECR will apply under different provisions.</p>
<p>You can call numbers not registered on the Telephone Preference Services (TPS) or the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) without consent, but only if there has been no prior objection.</p>
<p>Even if you have spoken to an individual in the past, if a number is added to the TPS or the CTPS you can no longer call them. The only way around this is via Consent from the individual in question.</p>
<h3>DM by Automated Call</h3>
<p>These are only allowed if you have specifically obtained consent for this activity. No ifs no buts.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You can only make this type of call if you have consent. General consent for direct marketing, or even consent for live calls, is not enough. The consent must specifically cover automated calls from you.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3>DM by Email or SMS</h3>
<p>This is covered under PECR regulation 22, and defined under Regulation 2 as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>âany text, voice, sound or image message sent over a public electronic communications network which can be stored in the network or in the recipientâs terminal equipment until it is collected by the recipient and includes messages sent using a short message serviceâ</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The definition is suitably broad as to also encompass things such as voicemail, in-app messaging, direct messaging on social media and more.</p>
<p>In most scenarios you'll be carrying out this activity under either Consent or Legitimate Interest.</p>
<p>Consent to receive a phone call is not consent to receive SMS , this goes back to earlier points about appropriate planning for your DM campaigns, make sure you collect the consent you need for planned activities.</p>
<p>Got a tracking pixel in your email? Of course you do. Make sure you're following this guidance.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you use âtracking pixelsâ within your direct marketing emails then you need to be aware that:</p>
<ul>
<li>regulation 22 applies to the email itself; and</li>
<li>if the pixel involves storing information, or accessing information stored, on the device used to read the email â such as its location, operating system, etc â then PECRâs rules on cookies and similar technologies (Regulation 6) will also apply.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>A soft opt-in can be used for sending this type of DM, but you'll need to make sure you meet the 5 requirements:</p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li>You obtained the contact details;</li>
<li>In the course of a sale or negotiation of a sale of a product or service;</li>
<li>Your similar products and services are being marketed;</li>
<li>Opportunity to refuse or opt-out given when you collected the details;</li>
<li>Opportunity to refuse or opt-out given in every communication.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<h2>B2B Marketing</h2>
<p>You can send email or SMS DM to B2B subscribers without consent, however you must still allow them to unsubscribe.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The PECR rules on marketing by electronic mail (eg email and text messages) do not apply to corporate subscribers. This means you can send B2B direct marketing emails or texts to any corporate body. However you must still say who you are and give a valid address for the recipients to unsubscribe from your emails.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, you must be careful as sole traders and some partnerships are still treated as individuals.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Because sole traders and some partnerships are treated as individual subscribers you can only market them by electronic mail if they have specifically consented, or the âsoft opt-inâ applies.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The GDPR may not apply in scenarios where you are contacting role based addresses, such as <a href="mailto:sales@example.com">sales@example.com</a>, however it does still apply when you have the name or number of a business contact, such as <a href="mailto:first.last@example.com">first.last@example.com</a></p>
<h2>Online Advertising</h2>
<p>Unlike marketers, most people are unlikely to know how cookies and other technologies are used for marketing purposes. As a result, you need to be transparent and fair (not to mention lawful) with how these technologies are used for direct marketing purposes.</p>
<p>Due to the nature of this type of processing, you are likely to have to conduct a DPIA for this type of direct marketing.</p>
<p>This guidance implies that cookie-based advertising can only be done via a GDPR level of consent. <em>That is, no Legitimate Interest and no soft opt-in.</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you are planning to use cookies for direct marketing purposes (whether or not they are targeted on the basis of those usersâ personal data), you need to comply with Regulation 6 by:</p>
<ul>
<li>providing users with clear and comprehensive information about the cookies etc that you intend to use; and</li>
<li>getting their consent (which must be to the GDPR standard).</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>This applies whether the cookie is yours or a third parties (Facebook, DoubleClick, Criteo, etc)</p>
<p>Similar rules apply when talking about SDK's used in apps vs cookies on websites.</p>
<p>If relying on unique identifiers provided by Android or iOS, these fall under Recital 30 of the GDPR and can be considered to the personal data.</p>
<p>Individuals are unlikely to be aware of list-based targeting on social media platforms, it's likely that you'll need Consent for this type of activity</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You must be upfront about this processing. Individuals are unlikely to expect that this processing takes place, therefore you should not bury information about any list-based tools you use on social media within your privacy information. It is likely that consent is the appropriate lawful basis for this processing as it is difficult to see how it would meet the three-part test of the legitimate interests basis. However you will still need to ensure you also meet transparency requirements.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This applies whether you are targeting these individuals directly or whether you're using their details to create lookalike audiences.</p>
<h2>Individual Rights</h2>
<p>When carrying out data processing activities for direct marketing purposes, you have to remember that individuals have rights under the GDPR, specifically the rights to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Object</li>
<li>Rectification</li>
<li>Erasure</li>
<li>Access</li>
<li>Restriction</li>
<li>Data portability</li>
</ul>
<p>Individuals retain the right to object to their data being processed for Direct Marketing purposes.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is an absolute right. If someone objects, you must stop processing their personal data for these purposes. There are no exemptions or grounds for you to refuse the objection.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This right does not only apply to the direct marketing itself but any data processing activity for the purpose of direct marketing, such as profiling or for advertising lists.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>It's clear from this draft guidance that the ICO have their eye on some of the more nefarious activities that marketers have been up to, specifically around areas that were previously lacking clarity, such as regarding the use of cookies for advertising or analytical purposes or with regards to uploading lists of personal data to third parties such as Facebook or Google.</p>
<p>This guidance also provided some much needed clarity around how Consent and Legitimate Interest can be used and where the soft opt-in can apply - these areas were previously quite ambiguous and this clarity goes a long way towards preventing some of the behaviour that was observed.</p>
<p>It remains to be seen whether the ICO have sufficient funding to actively enforce the GDPR and PECR.</p>
<p>My opinions and interpretations are no replacement for reading the guidance, <a href="https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/ico-and-stakeholder-consultations/ico-consultation-on-the-draft-direct-marketing-code-of-practice">read it</a>.</p>
Flash Boys
2020-01-31T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/flash-boys/
<p><em>I wish I'd read this years ago.</em></p>
<p>In any complex system, there will be actors looking to exploit that system to make a quick buck. It should be no surprise then that people exploited the financial markets to make money through arbitrage and front-running orders.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>âOnce very smart people are paid huge sums of money to exploit the flaws in the financial system, they have the spectacularly destructive incentive to screw the system up further, or to remain silent as they watch it being screwed up by others. The cost, in the end, is a tangled-up financial system. Untangling it requires acts of commercial heroismâand even then the fix might not work. There was simply too much more easy money to be made by elites if the system worked badly than if it worked well. The whole culture had to want to change. âWe know how to cure this,â as Brad had put it. âItâs just a matter of whether the patient wants to be treated.â</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I remember stumbling across <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/08/market-data-firm-spots-the-tracks-of-bizarre-robot-traders/60829/">an article</a> years ago that showed some of the noise being generated by HFT activity and thinking at the time how wild the system sounded. It turns out, it's a lot wilder when you look at the big picture shown in Flash Boys.</p>
The End of the Trident Era
2020-01-30T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/trident-engine-end/
<p>The Trident engine has been powering web experiences in Microsoft's Internet Explorer since late '97, but sadly, those days are now over with Microsoft's Edge browser now using Chromium to render web pages.</p>
<p>This great article by Christian Schaefer looks at some of the technologies implemented in Trident that could have made IE and the web great, had they seen wider adoption.</p>
ICO Direct Marketing Consultation
2020-01-29T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/ico-direct-marketing-consultation/
<p>The ICO is holding a consultation on their new direct marketing code of practice.</p>
<p>You've got until March 4th to provide your feedback on the <a href="https://ico.org.uk/media/about-the-ico/consultations/2616882/direct-marketing-code-draft-guidance.pdf">draft guidance</a>. Even if you're not providing feedback, this document is well worth a skim.</p>
Legacy of Ashes
2020-01-28T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/legacy-ashes-history-cia/
<p>Since it's founding in September 1947, the CIA has bumbled from disaster to disaster, spreading death and terror around the world.</p>
<p>Based on tens of thousands of documents from the CIA's archives and interviews with key former CIA staff, <em>Legacy of Ashes</em> is the extraordinary story of the the real CIA.</p>
<p>This isn't the CIA you may have read about elsewhere, this is the CIA that has directly funded, contributed to or otherwise worked with every modern dictator or terror group you are likely to have heard about, from the jungles of South America to the shores of Asia, and everywhere in between.</p>
<p>Absolutely enlightening if you want to understand how modern geopolitics have been formed from Cold War era meddling.</p>
The A/B Testing Paradox
2020-01-28T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/ab-testing-paradox/
<p>In marketing, we frequently use A/B testing when we have a hypothesis we want to prove, but it's not always the right tool for the job.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Most of the time, A/B testing is worthless. The time spent designing, running, analyzing, and taking action on an A/B test will usually outweigh the value of picking the more desirable option.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So what can you do?</p>
<p>Matthew breaks down when and why you might look at alternatives, and why A/B testing so frequently ends up being a costly endeavour.</p>
Save the Planet, Send Less Email
2020-01-27T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/save-planet-send-less-email/
<p>With data centers forecasted to use 8% of the world's electricity by 2030, it's time to reassess our reliance on online storage.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>âItâs costing us the equivalent of maintaining the airline industry for data we donât even use,â says Andrew Choi, a senior research analyst at Parnassus Investments, a $27 billion environmental, social, and governance firm in San Francisco.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Maybe it's time for the email industry to stop encouraging us all to <em>send more email</em>.</p>
Demos, Prototypes and MVPs
2020-01-26T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/demo-prototype-mvp/
<p>It's not always clear what people mean when they talk about demos, prototypes or MVPs.</p>
<p>This is one of the best breakdowns I've seen that explains exactly what the differences are and where and why you might choose one over the other.</p>
OKR's, YouTube and the Danger of Unintended Consequences
2020-01-22T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/okr-youtube-unintended-consequences/
<p><em><strong>"All other things being equal, our goal is to increase [video] watch time"</strong>, thus began an email sent in September 2011 by Cristos Goodrow to the YouTube leadership team.</em></p>
<p>He couldn't have known then what would become of that decision when, in February 2011 he joined the YouTube team, having previously worked on Google Product Search.</p>
<p>Per John Doerr's excellent <em>Measure What Matters</em>, the story goes like this.</p>
<p>Cristos found himself in a new team, inexperienced with the Google way of working with OKR's</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The companyâaround eight hundred people at the timeâwas producing hundreds of them each quarter. A team would open a Google doc and start typing in objectives, and they'd wind up with thirty or forty for ten people, and less than half would actually get done.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a new member, taking responsibility for search and discovery at YouTube, Cristos found himself introducing method and discipline to YouTube's goal setting approach. With the help of Shishir Mehrota, YouTube's new technical leader, a top down approach was taken to ensure OKR's would be focussed on solving big core issues.</p>
<p>With more than a smattering of good luck, it turned out that an engineer named Jim McFadden in Google Research Group was working on a video recommendation engine which had significant potential to increase the number of videos viewed.</p>
<p>At the time, YouTube were focused on views as their core metric, meaning the focus was on the number of views watched. Cristos changed that with an intuitive leap that longer watch times meant a more satisfied audience, leading to more advertising and more content creators joining the platform, what John Doerr calls "a virtuous cycle". From hereon in, from this day forward, YouTube's core metric would be watch time.</p>
<p>It took 6 months, but finally in March 2012, Cristos won his argument and, with Jim's prior work, launched a watch-time optimised recommendation engine.</p>
<p>Later that year, presumably after some early success with Jim's new engine and Cristos' goal, Shishir would gather the core team together at the annual YouTube Leadership Summit to declare their core new goal: one billion hours in daily user watch time, a tenfold increase from their present watch time numbers. To call it a mere BHAG would be a gross underestimate.</p>
<hr />
<p><strong>Objective:</strong></p>
<p>Reach 1 billion hours of watch time per day [by 2016], with growth driven by:</p>
<p><strong>Key Results:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Search team + Main App (+XX%), Living Room (+XX%)</li>
<li>Grow engagement and gaming watch time (X watch hours per day)</li>
<li>Launch YouTube VR experience and grow VR catalog from X to Y</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p>This was to be a four year goal, ending at the end of 2016 with rolling quarterly objectives and key results. Shishir understood the importance of breaking the goal down into more easily digestible chunks.</p>
<p>I don't think we'll ever know precisely what tweaks were made to the YouTube recommendations algorithm in those 4 years, but under the supervision of Susan Wojcicki, who joined YouTube as CEO in February 2014, the team managed to hit their extraordinary goal in early October of 2016.</p>
<h2>Then Things Started Going Wrong.</h2>
<p>Due to the extraordinary reach available for those willing to game the algorithmic system on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, unscrupulous groups like ISIS started using the platforms to spread their message of fear and terror across the world.</p>
<p>The response from YouTube was relatively swift, with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jun/24/google-youtube-anti-isis-push-inhuman-beheading-videos-censorship">a "call to arms" issued by Google</a> in an effort to take down these rapidly spreading videos.</p>
<p>Google executives used their stage at the Cannes Lions advertising festival to say the following.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"We used to think of terrorists as people who are hiding out in caves But now would-be terrorists are hanging out online. Technology is one of the greatest tools we have to reach at-risk youth all over the world and divert them from hate and radicalisation. We can only do that if we offer them alternatives. Only on open and diverse sites like YouTube⊠that we can find these countervailing points of view".</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It appears that they must have done something right, as to all appearances the volume of terrorist videos and content dropped down as it was deleted by YouTube's content moderation teams.</p>
<p>Sadly, it didn't take long for stories of YouTube being used as a tool of radicalisation to emerge again following the successful completion of their extraordinary BHAG. This time, it marked the rise of the alt-right across the Western world.</p>
<p>A month after their extraordinary achievement, in late November 2016 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/28/alt-right-online-poison-racist-bigot-sam-harris-milo-yiannopoulos-islamophobia">a story emerged</a> in The Guardian opinion section from an anonymous author, describing in all-too-painful detail their fall into the world of the alt-right, in no small part as a direct result of YouTube's video recommendation algorithm.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This, I think, is where YouTube's "suggested videos" can lead you down a rabbit hole. Moving on from Harris, I unlocked the Pandora's box of "It's not racist to criticise Islam!" content. Eventually I was introduced, by YouTube algorithms, to Milo Yiannopoulos and various "anti-SJW" videos (SJW, or social justice warrior, is a pejorative directed at progressives). They were shocking at first, but always presented as innocuous criticism from people claiming to be liberals themselves, or centrists, sometimes "just a regular conservative" â but never, ever identifying as the dreaded "alt-right".</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>This is Nothing New.</h2>
<p>Radicalisation on the internet is nothing new, with the potential of social networks to be misused for radicalisation being a topic of serious study following the 9/11 terror attacks. Studies specifically into YouTube's contribution to this phenomenon were conducted well before Cristos et al had even joined the company.</p>
<p>Conway and McInerney in 2008 published a paper titled <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-89900-6_13">Jihadi Video and Auto-radicalisation: Evidence from an Exploratory YouTube Study</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The establishment of YouTube and similar video-sharing sites, on the other hand, brought about a democratisation of access to jihadi video content as a result of the significant decrease in costs they introduced. Not only did YouTube become an immediate repository for large amounts of jihadist video content, but the social networking aspects of the site also facilitate interaction between those who post video and those who comment upon it thus opening new possibilities for a.) radicalisation via the Internet, but also b.) empirical analysis of same.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While this was only an exploratory study, it did come to some notable conclusions, proving that jihadist content was spreading far beyond what would traditionally be considered jihadist websites, they were quickly embracing video sharing and social networking to extend the reach of their content outside of what could be considered their core support base.</p>
<p>Bermingham <em>et al</em> in 2009 published a study titled <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/147597985.pdf">Combining Social Network Analysis and Sentiment Analysis to Explore the Potential for Online Radicalisation</a> where they explored the following</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The increased online presence of jihadists has raised the possibility of individuals being radicalised via the Internet. To date, the study of violent radicalisation has focused on dedicated jihadist websites and forums. This may not be the ideal starting point for such research, as participants in these venues may be described as "already madeup minds". Crawling a global social networking platform, such as YouTube, on the other hand, has the potential to unearth content and interaction aimed at radicalisation of those with little or no apparent prior interest in violent jihadism</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This study was quick to mention that, while prior research had focused on jihadi content, it would be useful to also study violent groups such as neo-Nazis and other groups with a history of violence.</p>
<p>This begs the question to be asked: why weren't YouTube's Product Managers sensitive to these particular topics and why did they not do everything in their power to reduce the spread of hate using the tools in their power?</p>
<h2>How YouTube Failed us</h2>
<p>15-year-old David Sherrat became radicalised by the far-right through online videogame communities and content. <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-youtube-pulled-these-men-down-a-vortex-of-far-right-hate">His story</a>, published by The Daily Beast, echoes the story of so many young people who fell into the rabbit hole thanks in no small part to YouTube's video recommendation algorithms.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>That fixation on watch-time can be banal or dangerous, said Becca Lewis, a researcher with the technology research nonprofit Data & Society. "In terms of YouTube's business model and attempts to keep users engaged on their content, it makes sense what we're seeing the algorithms do," Lewis said. "That algorithmic behavior is great if you're looking for makeup artists and you watch one person's content and want a bunch of other people's advice on how to do your eye shadow. But it becomes a lot more problematic when you're talking about political and extremist content."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Brazil, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-brazil.html">16-year-old Matheus Dominguez</a> fell down the far-right rabbit hole having being recommended a video from a far-right guitar teacher while watching guitar related content.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One day, it directed him to an amateur guitar teacher named Nando Moura, who had gained a wide following by posting videos about heavy metal, video games and, most of all, politics.</p>
<p>In colorful and paranoid far-right rants, Mr. Moura accused feminists, teachers and mainstream politicians of waging vast conspiracies. Mr. Dominguez was hooked.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His story wasn't a mere isolated case, with the now-President formerly being a highly successful star within Brazilian YouTube's far-right. Farshad Shadloo, a spokesman at Google event' went on to say <em>"we've seen that authoritative content is thriving in Brazil and is some of the most recommended content on the site."</em> This is a clear indicator that Google and YouTube were all too aware of the consequences of their video recommendation algorithm.</p>
<p>Zeynep Tufekci also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-politics-radical.html">discovered this firsthand</a> when she spent some time watching videos of Donald Trump on YouTube during the 2016 presidential campaign.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>At one point during the 2016 presidential election campaign, I watched a bunch of videos of Donald Trump rallies on YouTube. I was writing an article about his appeal to his voter base and wanted to confirm a few quotations.</p>
<p>Soon I noticed something peculiar. YouTube started to recommend and "autoplay" videos for me that featured white supremacist rants, Holocaust denials and other disturbing content.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-02/youtube-executives-ignored-warnings-letting-toxic-videos-run-rampant">a report by Bloomberg</a>, it was found that not only were Google aware of alt-right content, it was considered to be as important to the business as content from music, sports or gaming.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some employees still sought out these videos anyway. One telling moment happened around early 2018, according to two people familiar with it. An employee decided to create a new YouTube "vertical," a category that the company uses to group its mountain of video footage. This person gathered together videos under an imagined vertical for the "alt-right," the political ensemble loosely tied to Trump. Based on engagement, the hypothetical alt-right category sat with music, sports and gaming as the most popular channels at YouTube, an attempt to show how critical these videos were to YouTube's business.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What emerges from these varied reports is a clear picture of the harm done by YouTube in the pursuit of their BHAG, in the children who were explicitly shown content that led them into the embrace of the alt or far-right and in the subsequent spread of racism and misogyny across the Western world.</p>
<h2>Failure as a Service</h2>
<p><em><strong>"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"</strong></em></p>
<p>Goodhart's law serves to illustrate how complex systems can exploit crude measures, a failing that has become all too clear through YouTube's single-minded obsession with hitting their watch-time goals and the fallout we now find ourselves in as a result.</p>
<p>All that remains of a minor fragment of a poem, written by the Greek poet Archilocus of Paros two thousand six hundred and sixty years ago (give or take a few decades), is the line "The fox knows many things; the hedgehog one big thing". The original context is long forgotten, but Isaiah Berlin in a hugely influential essay titled "The Hedgehog and the Fox" used it as a method of classification for writers and thinkers. Hedgehogs, viewing the world through a single defining idea and foxes, drawing on a wide variety of experience and who cannot narrow the world down to a single idea.</p>
<p>John Lewis Gaddis, the Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University, in his book <em>On Grand Strategy</em> takes this metaphor even further.</p>
<p>A hedgehog may use a compass to know true North, but in the process of getting there may plunge headlong into swamps and chasms that bar his path.</p>
<p><em>And so it is for YouTube and their watch time goal. A veritable swamp that has swallowed YouTube whole, and, in the process, Western democracy as we know it.</em></p>
ACNE X Robbie Barrat A/W20
2020-01-21T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/acne-x-robbie-barrat-aw20/
<p>It would be hard to argue that Robbie Barrat isn't a pioneer.</p>
<p>At the age of 20 he's already <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/23/18013190/ai-art-portrait-auction-christies-belamy-obvious-robbie-barrat-gans">written code</a> that was instrumental in the creation and subsequent sale of the world's first (and still, most expensive) piece of AI art sold at auction, which went for $432,500 (rewarded to a French team who <em>"borrowed"</em> Robbie's code).</p>
<p>He's also <a href="https://www.artnome.com/news/2019/1/22/ai-artist-robbie-barrat-and-painter-ronan-barrot-collaborate-on-infinite-skulls">collaborated</a> with painter Ronan Barrot, <a href="https://robbiebarrat.github.io/balenciaga.html">trained a Machine Learning algorithm</a> on Balenciaga runway shows, going on to <a href="https://itemlabel.com/products/shinbag-pants-robbie-barrat-x-itemlabel?variant=14687923961898">make and sell trousers</a> inspired by the output of the subsequent model.</p>
<p>Most recently, he's collaborated with the fashion label Acne studios on their A/W20 menswear collection, using neural networks to generate new designs based on Acne's back catalogue, which were unveiled at Paris Fashion Week last Sunday.</p>
<p>I can't wait to see what Robbie does next!</p>
The Next Decade of Behavioural Science
2020-01-21T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/next-decade-behavioural-science/
<p>I recently finished Richard Thaler's excellent <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29757912-misbehaving">Misbehaving</a> which left me with a hankering for more on behavioural economics, psychology and more.</p>
<p>That's where the <a href="https://behavioralscientist.org/">Behavioral Scientist</a> website comes in, they've recently published the results of a call to leading behavioural scientists around the world, asking them to share their fears, hopes, big ideas and more.</p>
<p>Covering everything from technology, healthcare, climate change and everything in between, this is well worth a read to see what interests some of the luminaries in this area. In particular, I think the emerging area of ethical concerns around optimising for behaviour are well worth a read as there is tremendous potential for misuse here.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Behavioral science has confronted ethical dilemmas before: whether to help governments torture, whether to speak up about the consequences of discrimination. But never before has the essence of the field been so squarely in the wheelhouse of corporate interests. Like engineering and biomedical research, behavioral science will need to construct strong ethical guardrails to protect the science against the corrupting influence of powerful, monied interests in the next decade.</p>
</blockquote>
Spam Won't Save Your Product
2020-01-20T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/20200120-spam-wont-save-your-product/
<p>While I don't agree with the malware paranoia, this one by Mike Ludo seems like a no-brainer.</p>
<p>Sadly one that often falls on deaf ears.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All of this spam production is a drain on a companyâs resources that could be put into simply designing better product. Not that I want to advocate the mass firings of low-paid English majors, marketing interns, or whoever else is writing this deletia, but take every penny you are putting into spamming someone who once gave you their email address into making your product better, and you will reap the rewards as will everyone else on the planet who has an inbox.</p>
</blockquote>
Saying Goodbye to the Landing Page
2020-01-20T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/goodbye-landing-pages/
<p>Working on a SaaS app? You probably don't need another landing page.</p>
<p>Let your product do the talking instead.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Text, images and even videos require mental processing. The more time someone spends trying to figure out what your productâs value is rather than interacting with it, the higher the chance of them dropping off becomes.</p>
</blockquote>
Gods of Metal
2020-01-19T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/gods-metal/
<p><em>Gods of Metal</em> is an extended essay, first appearing in the New Yorker and subsequently expanded for this pocket book which tells the story of a Christian pacifist group calling themselves the Plowshares movement.</p>
<p>In 2012 three Plowshares activists aged 57, 63 and 82 were able to gain access to a uranium enrichment facility used during the Manhattan project, <em>Gods of Metal</em> tells the story of that event.</p>
Politicians Don't Actually Care What Voters Want
2020-01-17T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/20200117-politicians-dont-care/
<p>Or at least, that's the question being asked in a recent study and NYT op-ed both by political scientists Joshua Kalla and Ethan Porter.</p>
<p>But is that actually true? Andrew Gelman investigates...</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I guess what Iâm saying is that I donât see a coherent story here yet. This is not meant as a criticism of Kalla and Porter, who must have a much better sense of the literature than I do, but rather to indicate a difficulty in how we think about the links between public opinion and legislator behavior. I donât think itâs quite that âPoliticians Donât Actually Care What Voters Wantâ; itâs more that politicians donât always have a good sense of what voters want, politicians arenât always sure what they would do with that information if they had it, and whatever voters think they want is itself inherently unstable and does not always exist independent of framing.</p>
</blockquote>
Yves Klein and the Void
2020-01-16T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/20200116-yves-klein-void/
<p>It's no secret that many early photographic works were edited. If not carefully staged like Capa's <em>Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death, Cerro Muriano</em> then manipulated in the darkroom, giving us the name for many of the now familiar tools we use in Photoshop.</p>
<p>Here, Artsy break down Yves Klein's iconic <em>Le Saut dans le vide</em> and how it came to be created.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Though the performance and newspaper were saturated in irony, Klein was serious about keeping the illusion in tact: Shunk said he was threatened with legal action if he ever pulled back the Ozian curtain. The mysteries of the photograph werenât fully revealed until two shows in 2010 delved into the making of the image.</p>
</blockquote>
2015-2020 RIP Browser Push Notifications
2020-01-15T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/20200115-goodbye-browser-push-notifications/
<p>In 2015, browser push notifications were an exciting new way for websites to notify their visitors when something happened. Unfortunately, the inevitable happened, bad <em>and downright obnoxious</em> UX took over - you couldn't visit a website without being inundated with obnoxious opt-in messages, more often than not before you'd even had a chance to read the page you'd visited.</p>
<p>Firefox recently announced changes to the way they handle these notifications, directly as a result of the misuse by webmasters everwhere.</p>
<p>It's a shame, really. When my team implemented browser push to replace an email we were sending we saw much higher click rates and engagement with the product we were trying to promote.</p>
<p>Ultimately, we've done this to ourselves, I hope Chrome will follow suit soon.</p>
UI Components for Communication
2020-01-14T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/20200114-ui-components-communication/
<p>This might be blasphemy coming from someone who's worked in email marketing as long as I have, but there's more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to communicating with your app's customers.</p>
<p>I love how this article breaks down these channels by the amount of friction they create for customers. High friction isn't necessarily a bad thing, you just need to be aware of what you're doing and what you're trying to achieve.</p>
Tailwind V1.2 prerelease notes
2020-01-14T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/links/20200114-tailwind-v12/
<p>I've been using Tailwind a lot recently on the new Inkfolio project I'm working on and it's proving to be a great framework that allows a ton of flexibility for anyone who wants a little more control versus something like Bootstrap.</p>
<p>This latest update adds support for CSS Grid and CSS Transforms, both of which were notably absent from previous versions of the framework.</p>
Weekly Reading
2020-01-12T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20200106-weekly-reading/
<p>I finally did it! đș</p>
<p>I started reading <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31456148-the-holy-roman-empire">The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History</a> back in November and it's been a long and slow plod. It's a dense book that in ~680 pages covers 1,000 years of the Holy Roman Empire covering 4 key areas, Ideal, Belonging, Governance and Society. Not to mention the pages of tables, maps, family trees, tax records and more.</p>
<p>Given the resurgence of nationalism over the last decade, it's well worth a read if you want to under how modern Europe was built and how the very notion of nationalism is antithetical to a strong European state, even while those individual states retain full sovereignty.</p>
<p>I'm now reading John Lewis Gaddis' <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40698216-on-grand-strategy">On Grand Strategy</a> - not sure what to expect but the cover's nice đ€·ââïž</p>
<p>I've not talked about it a great deal recently but I'm still plugging away at <a href="https://www.inkfolio.co/">Inkfolio</a>.</p>
<p>Right now I'm working on a Drupal theme which should go live at around the same time as I'm ready to start hosting the app as an alpha. The aim being to:</p>
<ol>
<li>Have a decent landing page that clearly articulates what Inkfolio stands for and why it's worth paying for</li>
<li>Start to produce content aimed at helping tattoo artists better manage parts of their business</li>
</ol>
<p>On that note I've recently been looking at B2B brands that do written content really well, I think that might have to be a topic for another post entirely but I particularly enjoyed <a href="https://baremetrics.com/blog/freemium-saas-implode">this article from Baremetrics</a>, particularly when taken as a counterpoint to <a href="https://www.profitwell.com/blog/every-company-freemium">Profitwell's research</a> into Freemium business models.</p>
<p>I came across Robin Rendle's post on what he calls <a href="https://www.robinrendle.com/notes/the-dashboard-problem">The Dashboard Problem</a> - that is, how web apps frequently suffer from poor information hierarchy and how users suffer as a result. It's definitely made me reconsider a few things I had planned for Inkfolio.</p>
<p>The Australian bush fires continue to be a worldwide climate emergency, with one woman taking matters into her own hands and raising money for fire relief by <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2020/01/model-kaylen-ward-raised-thousands-australian-fire-relief.html">sending nudes</a> to people who can prove they donated at least $10 to suggested charities. It's reported she's now raised over $700k, which is damned impressive. Thirsty people will be thirsty, particularly for good causes.</p>
<p>Basecamp recently published their <a href="https://basecamp.com/guides/how-we-communicate">internal communication guidelines</a>, I don't understand why more business don't follow their model, which is all about open, honest and considered communication. Less adhoc meetings where decisions are made off the cuff by a narrow group of people, more carefully considered writing published in an open forum that everyone can access and add to. I'm trying to kick my own bad habits on that front - it's not easy by any means but even writing these posts helps me to more clearly gather my thoughts and consider the things I'm engaging with on a day to day basis.</p>
<p>Die Workwear wrote about <a href="https://dieworkwear.com/post/189986615919/how-well-remember-this-decade">menswear in the last decade</a>, the rise of online fashion, both from an ecommerce sense but also looking at online fashion communities.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This past decade will not be remembered for its trends, but rather the new ways in which we engage with clothing. Weâve reached an age where thereâs a full kaleidoscope of possibilities in terms of appearance, and the ascendancy of one look doesnât necessarily displace another. While there are trends, theyâre filtered through very dispersed communities. Few things truly dominate.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Wild card, bitches! Yeee-haa! Dominic Cummings, the chief advisor to UK PM BoJo posted a <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/8505/dominic-cummings-wild-card-plan">long rant of a job post</a> that's redolent of an Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode.</p>
<p>I've been thinking about changing the format of this post recently, so maybe expect some changes over the coming months.</p>
Weekly Reading
2020-01-05T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20191230-weekly-reading/
<p>It's been a while, eh?</p>
<p>I've had a chance to do a bit of reading since the Christmas and New Year break and since <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20191209-weekly-reading.html">the last update</a>.</p>
<p>First up was <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42194872-plague-war">Plague War</a> by Guy Haley, another 40k book (I've read a lot of them). Even by 40k's standards this was pretty badly written, but interesting in as much as it's one of the more recent books written that actively seeks to progress the setting's storyline. Worth picking up if you're a 40k fan, not worth touching if you're not.</p>
<p>Following on from the last update where I read of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36501797-trillion-dollar-coach">Trillion Dollar Coach</a> - I read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29342515-the-coaching-habit">The Coaching Habit</a> by Michael Bungay Stanier which I picked up for 99p in one of the endless Kindle daily deals. Even at that price it'd be hard to recommend it. The only good thing I have to say for it is that it lasted about as along as a train ride from Liverpool Street to Diss. Not to be entirely negative, it probably would have made for an interesting blog post and the key takeaway is a valuable one to remember: listen more, talk less.</p>
<p>Finally, I read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40549476-this-is-marketing">This is Marketing</a> by Seth Godin. If you're anything like me and you've spent time reading articles and blog posts about marketing, you've probably come across Seth's name here and there. I came into this expecting little and wasn't too surprised with what I got out of this. <em>This is Marketing</em> is a book for people who know nothing about marketing, Seth writes endless pithy but ultimately meaningless generalities that fail to provide any sort of insight or knowledge that you can apply back into your own practice. If you want to learn marketing, <strong><em>this ain't it</em></strong>.</p>
<p>I do have one good thing to say about This is Marketing though which is that Seth makes a clear stand towards a more moral approach towards marketing, which I can't help but agree with.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Shameless marketers brought shame to the rest of us A short-term, profit-maximizing hustler can easily adopt a shameless mind-set. Spamming, tricking, coercing. Is there any other profession that proudly does this?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Last year I read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2019/86396018">45 books</a>, which according to Goodreads means I read 14,400 pages. Not too shabby, I've started another challenge again this year - I find it's a great way to stay motivated and to remember what I actually read.</p>
<p>I'm still slooooowwwwwwwwwwly plodding through <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31456148-the-holy-roman-empire">The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History</a>. I'll get there eventually.</p>
<p>Having just got back to work on Thursday, I've not had much time to read articles online, but here are a couple of the better ones I've come across.</p>
<p>You've undoubtedly come across the concept of statistical significance, you've probably even used it in some way or other - maybe in gauging the effectiveness of one email subject lines vs another, or what colour that CTA should be on your landing page. <a href="https://qz.com/1729049/the-origins-of-the-concept-of-statistical-significance/">Some people are now making a solid case for getting rid of it</a> - their arguments, backed by many top statisticians are well worth reading.</p>
<p>I used to work in spread betting so I'm no stranger to some of the bullshitters who like to call themselves "traders". Vice recently wrote a great article on <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/jgexk3/forex-trading-help-tips-make-money-online">that side of the industry</a>. Spoiler alert - if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.</p>
<p>I like a good rant, apparently <a href="https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/01/02/why-i-rant/">I'm not the only one</a>.</p>
<p>You probably (hopefully - hiding under a rock does no one any favours) saw the news on Friday. The New Yorker wrote a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/30/the-shadow-commander">powerful exposé</a> on Qassem Suleimani back in 2013, it's worth reading if you want to understand what's currently going on and why this action was worth taking.</p>
<p>Rather timely as I just bought a new toothbrush, Wired wrote an article on <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/electric-toothbrushes-rise">Big Toothbrush</a>. You should buy an electric toothbrush if you care for your teeth.</p>
Weekly Reading
2019-12-18T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20191209-weekly-reading/
<p>Keeping this short because I am <em>busy</em> at the moment and I should probably do a nice big yearly roundup at some point in the very near future.</p>
<p>I had the pleasure (đ) of <a href="https://twitter.com/iamacyborg/status/1206192759431991297">getting tattooed</a> again on Sunday so I powered through <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43445551-trillion-dollar-coach">Trillion Dollar Coach</a> by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle. By all accounts, Bill Campbell was an incredible man who coached high powered execs to incredible levels of success. Trillion Dollar Coach opens by stating that The Coach wouldn't have wanted a book written about him, Schmit <em>et al.</em> should have had more respect for him and not published something this dull.</p>
Weekly Reading
2019-12-09T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20191202-weekly-reading/
<p>In case you've been living under a rock, some serious shit is happening on Thursday.</p>
<p>Read the <a href="https://www.libdems.org.uk/plan">Lib Dem manifesto</a>.</p>
<p>Read the <a href="https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/">Labour manifesto</a>.</p>
<p>Read the <a href="https://campaigns.greenparty.org.uk/manifesto/">Greens manifesto</a>.</p>
<p>Read the <a href="https://vote.conservatives.com/our-plan">Tory manifesto</a>.</p>
<p>Vote Tactically.</p>
<p>Think about the moral implications of voting tactically.</p>
<p>Fuck Boris Johnson</p>
<p>Fuck Brexit.</p>
Weekly Reading
2019-12-03T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20191125-weekly-reading/
<p>I'm still slowly plodding through Peter Wilson's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31456148-the-holy-roman-empire">The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History</a>. More to come later.</p>
<p>I got tattooed on Saturday and needed a pretty solid distraction both on the way there to calm my nerves and during the session itself, which lasted 6 hours and was rough đ. So I read and finished <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44806008-dispel-illusion">Dispel Illusion</a> by Mark Lawrence, which was the third and final book in the Impossible Times trilogy. It was a great ending to the arc and included an awesome nod to Lawrence's other series - I won't say any more to avoid spoilers, but it was fun.</p>
<p>I also read (and finished today, <em>yeah I know it's Tuesday</em>) <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33132612-the-talon-of-horus">The Talon of Horus</a> by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. which reveals the backstory for one of the major factions in the 40k universe. Dembski-Bowden is one of the better authors writing for GW's publishing arm, Black Library and his books never fail to be fun. This is probably one of the best entry points into 40k as an IP.</p>
<p>I'd saved this article a while ago but hadn't gotten around to reading it until recently. <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-photos-treasure-them">Weâre Taking More Photos Than Everâbut Do We Still Treasure Them?</a> - My father was a professional photographer and I studied photography at school and spend many hours in the darkroom developing black & white film and prints so this article hits close to home. Photography went from something quite special and considered to something we all literally have at the reach of our hands 24/7. This article explores how the meaning and the experience of photography has changed in the last 15 years as digital photography became available to everyone.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In many ways, mass photography has changed from a private ritual to a public performance. The public aspect of images is no longer just for artists, photojournalists, or celebrities. Our photographs lead a double life: as memories that we can revisit, like journal entries; and as statements about ourselves to our social networks, like self-declarationsâor self-promotion.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Last week <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol30/1404/2019/en/">Amnesty International published a report</a> on Facebook and Google's business model threaten human rights through their all-encompassing surveillance. We all, to varying extents, rely on tools, products and platforms created by these tech giants in our daily lives. But at what cost?</p>
<p>The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published leaked materials on <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/exposed-chinas-operating-manuals-for-mass-internment-and-arrest-by-algorithm/">China's detention camps</a> in the Xinjiang territory, in which the native Muslim Uyghur population are subjected to brain washing and torture. The leaks are astounding, stop reading my blog and go read this immediately.</p>
Weekly Reading
2019-11-24T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20191118-weekly-reading/
<p>Peter Wilson's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31456148-the-holy-roman-empire">The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History</a> is proving to be a really fascinating read, albeit a slow one. I got incredibly side-tracked recently by Pokemon Shield which was released last week (It's <em>really good</em>) and haven't had a chance to make much progress on it, but ~300 pages in and I already feel like I've learnt a ton. This isn't an easy read by any stretch of the imagination so slow progress is to be expected, I suppose. I'm going to have to pick up something nice and easy to read afterwards as a palette cleanser.</p>
<p>While reading's been slow on the book front, I came across a ton of interesting articles last week, so let's start with some of those.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/FlippedCoding">Milecia</a> wrote a great article on <a href="https://dev.to/flippedcoding/why-it-s-important-to-have-hobbies-outside-of-tech-2d1">the value of having non-tech hobbies</a>. If you're anything like me, you probably spend a fairly significant amount of your day looking at a computer screen, or working on tech related or enabled projects in your free time, you might even be making excuses for it, such that you need to keep up to date with the latest trends or It's not <em>technically</em> work. I think it's worth remembering that there's a whole world out there away from your screen, personally, I find reading really rewarding and over the last ~18 months I've really enjoyed getting back into some semblance of fitness by swimming, running and doing yoga. Remember, work will be there waiting for you tomorrow, look after yourself today and don't burn out.</p>
<p><a href="https://alexdanco.com/2019/10/26/everything-is-amazing-but-nothing-is-ours/">Everything is amazing, but nothing is ours</a>, or so Alex Danco claims. What he's saying makes sense, over the last decade we've increasingly shifted into a digital service based economy, we no longer own our files or the documents we create. That's not always a bad thing but as systems become increasingly interdependent we stand to lose sight of what ownership means. Maybe that's where the next big opportunity lies?</p>
<p>Sexual harassment on the internet sadly isn't something that's new - but kids using the only fashion marketplace Depop are <a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/fashion-tech/depop-sexual-harassment-internet-safety">becoming victims of sexual abuse and predatory behaviour</a> thanks to a lack of foresight and care by the engineering teams behind the platform.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Martha Kirby, a child safety online policy manager with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, said Depop is precisely the type of platform that attracts pedophiles.</p>
<p>âPerpetrators migrate to wherever there are sites with young people,â she said. âItâs quite common for this to happen on newer platforms.â</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Depop are by no means the only problematic platform here, as the article highlights, but that does not remove them from the culpability of creating a platform in which pedophiles can target and harass children.</p>
<p>That brings me to Stacy Kvernmo's recent article on CSS Tricks, <a href="https://css-tricks.com/its-my-job-and-yours/">It's my job, and yours</a>. It is our ethical and moral duty to do better in our marketing, in our design and in our general web space in particular. There's really no excuse not to.</p>
<p>If you've been reading these posts over the last few months you may recall that I've read a few of Mark Lawrence's books this year. Mark recently shared on his blog that <a href="https://mark---lawrence.blogspot.com/2019/11/hollywood-and-hollywouldnts-your.html">one of his trilogies has just been optioned for TV</a> and goes on to share exactly what that means. Spoiler alert - there's a lot less money in something being optioned than you probably thought.</p>
<p>The world continues to go to shit, with <a href="https://www.citylab.com/environment/2019/11/venice-flood-st-marks-acqua-alta-climate-change-pictures/601927/?">Venice once again dealing with record floods</a>.</p>
<p>Are you a painter? Be more thoughtful in choosing your brushes, and don't buy mongoose hair brushes. Why shouldn't you? <a href="https://qz.com/india/1750476/nearly-100000-indian-mongooses-die-every-year-for-paintbrushes/">Over 100,000 mongooses are killed every year for their hair</a>.</p>
<p>Addicted to tech? <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90425323/buddhism-scholars-meditation-apps-are-fueling-tech-addition-not-easing-stress">Maybe you should put that "mindfulness" app down</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In that case, Buddhist apps, rather than curing the anxiety created by our smartphones, just make us more addicted to them and, in the end, even more stressed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We live in a surveillance state, but that's only getting worse as <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/ring-camera-uk-amazon">Amazon builds it's own private surveillance network</a> thanks to hundreds of thousands of gullible idiots. Harsh words, maybe, but we're all responsible for the world we live in, so stop giving tech giants access to surveil your property and your neighbours.</p>
<p>I came across a great article on <a href="https://www.kooslooijesteijn.net/blog/semantic-sidenotes">building semantic sidenotes</a>, something I may have to look at soon, I'd like to make some general design improvements to this site as I continue to post more regularly(I definitely need some sort of blockquote formatting đŹ).</p>
<p>Anyway, back to that hobbies article, I think it's time to step away from this computer and go for a walk.</p>
<p>Cya!</p>
Weekly Reading
2019-11-19T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20191111-weekly-reading/
<p>Sorry, too busy playing Pokemon Shield right now, normal service will resume next week.</p>
<p><em>PS the game is ace.</em></p>
Experiments in Modern Web Development
2019-11-13T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/jam-stack-question-mark-question-mark/
<p>I recently decided to make my life a lot harder than it needs to be when I decided to try out some new platforms when building a simple landing page for my <a href="https://www.inkfolio.co/">Inkfolio</a> project.</p>
<p>If, like me, you have been living under a rock when it comes to modern web development, the <em>hot new thing</em> is the <a href="https://jamstack.wtf/">JAMstack</a>. And if, like me, you have no idea what that is, it's a web development architecture based on JavaScript, API's and Markup. The JAM to the stack, if you will.</p>
<p>In any case, I decided that this new site would be the perfect opportunity to experiment with this new(ish) methodology, alongside a dash of <a href="https://reactjs.org/">React</a> via <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.org/">Gatsby</a>, neither of which I have ever used previously. To serve up all that delicious content, I'm using <a href="http://drupal.org/">Drupal</a> which I've used for <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/failed-projects.html">a few projects in the past</a>. The Gatsby site is then being automatically built and deployed via <a href="https://www.netlify.com/">Netlify</a>.</p>
<p>There's a lot to like with working this way, the site itself is blazing fast (97 on Google's PageSpeed Insights test for mobile), hosting is free (on Netlify, $5 p/m for Drupal if hosting online is important), form submissions are free and it's very easy to work with community created extensions.</p>
<p>With that being said, there are also a few big shortcomings, the biggest of which remains my general lack of familiarity with using a modern Javascript framework.</p>
<p>While working on this project I've also had the chance to experiment with <a href="https://ghost.org/">Ghost</a>. It was a doddle to install on Digital Ocean and the content authorship experience for simple blog posts or pages is hard to beat. It did however feel quite limiting compared to something like Drupal or WordPress which have much better support for things like working with custom content types, the theming also felt relatively unfamiliar and complex to me.</p>
<p>I may go back to a general monolithic Drupal installation when I start hitting the wall with my own skills, but for the time being I'm enjoying working this way. I may even experiment with using React & Gatsby to quickly generate email templates, the component system really is quite a nice way to work.</p>
Weekly Reading
2019-11-11T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20191104-weekly-reading/
<p>I finally got around to finishing <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25768015-traction">Traction</a> by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares last week, and I wasn't super impressed. The central premise is an interesting one, quickly iterate on various marketing channels until you find one that can help you move the needle for customer acquisition, and then focus all your efforts on that. The primary problem is that so much of the channel specific tactics are now wildly out of date, particularly when it comes to digital.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong, there were, for me, a few valuable takeaways such as specific tactics for finding cheap offline advertising opportunities using remnant inventory, but overall I think you'd be wiser reading a more thorough and up-to-date marketing book if you want to focus on specific tactics.</p>
<p>Right now I'm ~200 pages into Peter Wilson's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31456148-the-holy-roman-empire">The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History</a>. It's absolutely fascinating so far, more to come once I finish it.</p>
<p>Trust the French to do ridiculous things, this time they're <a href="https://qz.com/1656636/a-french-start-up-is-sending-wine-to-space/">sending wine into space</a>. In this case they're hoping that the wine will become a collector's item for sponsors of a company looking to conduct biological research in microgravity. As you do. SantĂ© đ·</p>
<p>Salary negotiation can often be a scary thing, but <a href="https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/">it doesn't always have to be that way</a>. <a href="https://dylanatsmith.com/">Dylan</a> shared this article on #emailgeeks a while ago but I finally got around to reading it, you should too.</p>
<p>GitHub's <a href="https://github.blog/2019-11-04-github-sponsors-is-now-out-of-beta-in-30-countries/">sponsor program</a> is now out of open beta. This seems like a great way for companies making use of open source software to give back to the people who make that software happen.</p>
<p>Fight Club (the movie) celebrated it's 20th anniversary last month and with that came a <a href="https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a29463962/fight-club-bad-20th-anniversary-analysis-essay/">number</a> of <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-men-who-still-love-fight-club">critiques</a> on the film's lasting impact to society. I have to admit, I still love the movie and the soundtrack <a href="https://www.last.fm/user/Jacques_ct/library/music/The+Dust+Brothers/Fight+Club?date_preset=ALL">remains one of my firm favourites</a>. Maybe the problem is that the movie didn't end in the same way as Palahniuk's book, and in that difference a significant amount of self-aware critique got lost in translation.</p>
<p><a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/01/immigration-wall-open-borders-trillion-dollar-idea/">Open borders are a trillion-dollar idea</a>, or so claims Bryan Caplan for Foreign Policy. His argument is a compelling one, which sadly will likely only be ignored by those who need to read it most.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But borders arenât just a missed opportunity for those stuck on the wrong side on them. If the walls come down, almost everyone benefits because immigrants sell the new wealth they createâand the inhabitants of their new country are their top customers.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was inevitable, but <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/06/uber-ad-platform/">Uber are now in the ad business</a>. I guess they're desperate to help fill the billion dollar hole in their balance sheet from last quarter alone.</p>
<p>I guess that segues quite nicely into an article <a href="https://twitter.com/iamtiffani">Tiffani</a> shared on #emailgeeks on the subject of <a href="https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble-is-here-its-called-online-advertising/13228924500-22d5fd24">digital advertising</a>. If you haven't been paying attention, thanks almost entirely to Google and Facebook, the digital advertising industry is now worth more than $270bn annually and continues to grow. But what if it's all a scam?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The experiment ended up showing that, for years, eBay had been spending millions of dollars on fruitless online advertising excess, and that the joke had been entirely on the company.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That reminds me that I should <em>really</em> brush up on my stats knowledge.</p>
<p>On the subject of Google and advertising, the Wall Street Journal released an <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-edged-out-rivals-and-built-the-worlds-dominant-ad-machine-a-visual-guide-11573142071">excellent visualisation</a> recently showing exactly how Google makes money from both sides of the advertising marketplace through Adwords, DoubleClick and AdX. With Google's <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/1/20943318/google-fitbit-acquisition-fitness-tracker-announcement">recent acquisition of Fitbit</a> allowing them to hoover up private health information for hundreds of thousands of people, making their digital advertising black boxes even scarier to privacy conscious individuals.</p>
<p>In more positive news coming from the world of tech, Microsoft Japan <a href="https://qz.com/work/1741570/microsoft-japan-tried-a-four-day-work-week-and-was-more-productive/">trialed a four-day work week</a>. They found employees were 40% more productive. I remain mildly hopeful that other's will trial this too.</p>
A Long List of Failed Projects
2019-11-09T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/failed-projects/
<p>I've had a lot of projects fail over the years, here's a non-exhaustive list of them and some reasons why they failed</p>
<h2>Love Community Site</h2>
<p>Love was an online procedurally generated video game released by Eskil Steenberg in <a href="http://www.quelsolaar.com/love/">2010</a>.</p>
<p>One of the modules in the second year of my Digital Arts degree was around creating online community platforms (I forget the precise name of the module), which I took entirely too literally and thus built a forum and wiki website for this game. The site was a simple vBulletin forum with a MediaWiki wiki, running on a crappy shared hosting provider.</p>
<p>While the community picked up quickly and I managed to do remarkably well on the SEO front for this site, ultimately the game was never a big success which led to the site slowly dying off. Thus would begin a recurring theme with online communities I've tried to build...</p>
<p><em>Minecraft came out around the same time, maybe I should have tried to do something with that</em> đ€</p>
<h2>Path of Exile Wiki</h2>
<p>I first discovered Path of Exile through Total Biscuit's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8779Ff_qoc">WTF is... - Path of Exile</a> video (this was before TB turned out to be a massive chud) and was instantly hooked as it reminded me so much of Diablo 2, which I'd played a ridiculous amount of.</p>
<p>The site <a href="https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/index.php?title=Path_of_Exile_Wiki&oldid=1">went live on September 25th 2011</a> and <a href="https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/9046">quickly picked up steam within the community</a> - I'd got the timing right and got in there before anyone else, which was pure luck.</p>
<p>The site soon became a victim of it's own success and as it was hosted on my crappy shared hosting provider, kept going down as the game approached the big Open Beta launch phase in early 2013. I tried to move it but database extracts kept failing because of the size of the cache tables and my hosting provider didn't seem to care to give me a hand.</p>
<p>It was at this moment that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_LLC">Curse</a> swooped in and offered to buy the site out from me - the offer seemed good at the time so I signed on the dotted lined and gave up control of my baby.</p>
<p>That decision opened up a lot of opportunities for me, but in hindsight turned out to have probably been a mistake. The site still does millions of pageviews a month and was firmly within the top 10 for traffic within Gamepedia (Curse's wiki farm) when I last had access to stats.</p>
<p>I couldn't ever have predicted the scale of success that this reached but hindsight's a bitch and I do regret selling this.</p>
<p><a href="https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Path_of_Exile_Wiki">Path of Exile Wiki</a> is still live if you want to check out what it looks like now.</p>
<h2>Hellgate Forums</h2>
<p>Hellgate: London was a game <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellgate:_London">released in 2007</a> that turned out to be a commercial failure.</p>
<p>It was, however, a ton of fun and as the studio responsible for the game was dissolved in 2008 the rights were snapped up and eventually the game was re-released in 2014 as Hellgate: Global.</p>
<p>I setup another Forum and Wiki combo but it was not to be - the game was heavily monetised and never picked up as well as the first iteration did.</p>
<p>I quickly folded the site and gave up.</p>
<h2>BFGA Wiki</h2>
<p>I'm a <strong>BIG</strong> Warhammer nerd, so when I found out that a game was being made licensing Games Workshop's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefleet_Gothic">Battlefleet Gothic</a> IP I lept at the chance to quickly build a wiki for it.</p>
<p>This was actually part of a wider project - while at Curse I'd spoken to my boss about the lack of clear community platforms for the GW videogaming community and while he wasn't enthused about the idea that didn't deter me from running with it when I left Curse. That wider project involved a large forum and news combo site built on Invision Power Board and a network of related MediaWiki sites. I couldn't get sufficient traffic to those properties so quickly killed them off, but BFGA Wiki was working, for a time.</p>
<p>If you're not familiar with MediaWiki, there's a fantastic extension called <a href="https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki">Semantic: Mediawiki</a> which allows you to store and query data directly within your wiki pages and templates. We'd used this on the PoE Wiki and it was hugely important there so I made use of it again to be able to quickly build queryable pages to minimise duplicate work. For example, with SMW you can <a href="https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Inline_queries">create a table of specific results</a> that match a query and output specific data values into that table. In the context of a videogame site you can quickly see how this can be used to generate lists of skills, ships, etc that are then easy to keep up to date.</p>
<p>Ultimately this never really picked up and I burnt out on it and let the domain expire.</p>
<p>You can see a snapshot of this wiki on the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170426103307/http://www.bfgawiki.com/wiki/Battle_Cruiser">Wayback Machine</a>.</p>
<h2>Appel du Vide</h2>
<p>For some reason, I thought I could build a business selling made to measure shearling jackets.</p>
<p>I had a sample bomber jacket made on Brick Lane by the folks at <a href="https://www.upperclassfashion.co.uk/">Upperclass Fashions</a> and shopped around for trims at London Trimmings in Whitechapel (they have awesome <a href="http://www.londontrimmings.co.uk/category.php?cat_id=32">Riri and YKK Excella zips</a>), I also spent a lot of time looking around for shearling suppliers in the UK and finding UK based companies that could make small batch jackets.</p>
<p>I then built an ecommerce site on Shopify and ran some ad campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. I ended up with a few people reaching out to me who were interested and met a couple of them to show them the sample jacket and to learn more about what they were after and how I could make it for them.</p>
<p>I didn't have a real budget for this though and I felt way out of my depth trying to get samples made, patterns cut, etc so I ended up killing this project off before it ever had the chance to go anywhere. That sample jacket is still sitting in my wardrobe.</p>
<p>But hey, the domain name is still cool, I've got some future ideas for it...</p>
<h2>Old World Wiki</h2>
<p>Remember how I said I was a BIG Warhammer nerd?</p>
<p>This was another Warhammer community site, this time for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_War:_Warhammer">Total War: Warhammer</a>, a game released by Creative Assembly in 2016.</p>
<p>Helpfully, the game has great mod support and as a result you can easily export the game files in usable formats. This meant I could build a custom Drupal site that would automatically create pages based on imported CSV data, and through abundant usage of the <a href="https://www.drupal.org/docs/8/core/modules/views/overview">Views module</a> I could link these files together and populate site pages, and example of which <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180124015058/http://oldworldwiki.com:80/grave-guard-0">you can see here</a>.</p>
<p>I'd never really been properly exposed to SQL or database joins so this project really tested me and I learn a ton.</p>
<p>The site was never a big success though, so I let it die off slowly.</p>
<h2>Rend Forums</h2>
<p>There's a theme here...</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rendgame.com/">Rend</a> is an online survival game by Frostkeep Studios.</p>
<p>When I saw the trailer for this game I knew I had to get involved in it. I'd seen how successful similar genre games were like ARK: Survival Evolved and Rust and thought this could be an opportunity to build a community site.</p>
<p>I got stuck in and quickly setup a forum and wiki using IPB and MediaWiki but quickly hit a roadblock.</p>
<p>Curse had announced that they were the "official" wiki partner to Rend, and Frostkeep built an in-house forum.</p>
<p>Under those conditions I knew there was little I could do to get the site going and quickly gave up on it.</p>
<h2>What's Next ...?</h2>
<p>If you've got to the bottom of this, you can probably see that there's an ongoing theme here.</p>
<p>I like building online gaming communities, but all but one of them have ultimately been a failure.</p>
<p>I think there are a few reasons for this - but the biggest one was my lack of recognition that the internet itself has changed. People no longer look to join independent forums, indeed, what's the point when you can just easily join a specific subreddit or Facebook group?</p>
<p>Similarly, Curse and Wikia (now Fandom) were in a huge growth phase and very quickly came to dominate the online gaming wiki world - with absolutely unbeatable SEO from their huge scale and a budget allowing them to attend conventions and make deals to host official communities with game developers and publishers.</p>
<p>Curse were recently bought by Fandom so this is now much worse, I'd estimate that at least 90% of English speaking videogame community wikis are owned by a single company.</p>
<p>Is there any future for online community builders? Yeah, maybe, but there are also huge barriers to entry that will be all but insurmountable for all but the most dedicated.</p>
<p>I've learnt a lot which has helped me in my professional career and have had access to opportunities that I never could have thought of had I not built these sites.</p>
<p>Ultimately I enjoy having side projects and don't consider any of the above to have been wasted time, despite them not getting anywhere.</p>
<p><strong>I'm now working on <a href="https://www.inkfolio.co/">something I find really exciting</a>, hopefully you will too.</strong></p>
Weekly Reading
2019-11-03T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20191028-weekly-reading/
<p>Progress made so far on <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25768015-traction">Traction</a>. Zero. It appears I've fallen off the wagon on that front. I'll pick it back up during the week.</p>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/google-design/the-obvious-ui-is-often-the-best-ui-7a25597d79fd">Obvious UI is often the best UI</a>, it seems like a pretty self-evident statement but sometimes we all need reminding of the obvious. Why hide your navigation under a hamburger menu when you can display it directly? Why not show a bottom navigation bar on mobile screens so the navigation is in easy reach for a user? Maybe we need to go back to the drawing board and get back to the basics.</p>
<p>What is the IndieWeb and why should you care? <a href="https://www.jvt.me/posts/2019/10/20/indieweb-talk/">Jamie Tanna tells us what it's all about</a>. The web has changed significantly in the last couple decades - and people are starting to fight back against the lack of ownership of their own content and data.</p>
<p>Google Stadia - Google's videogame streaming service that allows users to play games streamed directly from Google servers is launching in less than a month, but <a href="https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-10-25-stadias-stealth-launch-does-not-inspire-confidence-opinion">you've probably heard nothing about it</a>. Can we expect this to be as big a flop as all the other similar programs that launched over the last few years?</p>
<p>Funerals aren't normally very fun affairs - <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-restaurant-mistakenly-serves-cannabis-cake-at-funeral/a-51038232">this one might have been different</a>.</p>
<p>Web dev has changed significantly from when I learnt it at uni and the radical shift towards Javascript as a monolithic environment is one that I still struggle to wrap my head around. <a href="https://medium.com/@mandy.michael/is-there-any-value-in-people-who-cannot-write-javascript-d0a66b16de06">Is there still value</a> in just knowing how to write good CSS and HTML, I firmly believe the answer is yes.</p>
<p>On that note, and related to the shortness of this post, I've been working on something <a href="https://www.lullabot.com/articles/decoupled-drupal-getting-started-gatsby-and-jsonapi">along these lines</a>, very much more to talk about in the near future.</p>
Weekly Reading
2019-10-27T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20191021-weekly-reading/
<p>It's been a pretty slow week on the reading front. I'm still working my way through <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25768015-traction">Traction</a>, which is quite interesting so far although I can't help but feel like a lot of the marketing tactics discussed - being so digital in nature - are now outdated and no longer of much use. I think there are still a few nuggets to be teased out of it though. More to come when I finish the book, I guess.</p>
<p>Did you know that <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/8116/hermit-crabs-breeding-captivity">all hermit crabs you find in pet shops come from the wild</a>? I sure didn't. The industry is an unregulated nightmare, but one breeder is working to change that.</p>
<p>Are you a European Citizen? If the answer to that is yes, you might share more than you know with the corrupt family of Cambodia's long running leader, Hun Sen.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Choeung and Lau were issued with Cypriot passports in February 2017, Reuters reporting showed. Four of their five children also applied for Cypriot passports in the same year.</p>
<p>These prominent Cambodians all sought Cypriot citizenship during a turbulent period when Hun Senâs grip on power seemed to be faltering. His recent troubles trace back to a general election in 2013. His ruling Cambodian Peopleâs Party had long dominated the polls, but in 2013 it won only 68 of the national assemblyâs 123 seats and 48% of the votes. It was Hun Senâs worst showing in 15 years.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Buying your way into the EU via Cyprus is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/cambodia-hunsen-wealth/">an ongoing issue</a>, which the rich and the wealthy are exploiting to run away from problems back home.</p>
<p>A pub in the UK is <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/facial-recognition-london-pub-lineup-1.5317769">trialing facial recognition technology to manage queues at the bar</a>. While the wait can definitely be a bummer, I'm not sure I'm willing to give up that sort of data just for the convenience of knowing my place in a queue.</p>
<p>I stumbled across an interesting article on <a href="https://ncase.me/remember/">Spaced Repetition</a>, an evidence based learning technique which aims to repeat information in the form of flashcards to improve your ability to learn. This subsequently lead me to <a href="https://mochi.cards/">Mochi App</a>, a digital way of applying this technique. I've not yet had a chance to put it to the test but I'll be giving it a try when I get back into working in Python.</p>
<p>How expensive can a UX mistake really be? In the US Navy's case, it can lead to deaths and a financial cost <a href="https://uxdesign.cc/the-u-s-navys-100-million-checkbox-af2baf17dec4">North of $100,000,000</a>. At the heart of this disaster is poor design, specifically how a single checkbox ended in tragedy.</p>
<p>Understandably, Stripe articles often do the rounds of Design Twitter - this one in particular caught my eye this week as it talks about something that seems to all too frequently be ignored, <a href="https://stripe.com/gb/blog/accessible-color-systems">accessible colour systems</a>.</p>
<p>Garrett Dimon writes on <a href="https://garrettdimon.com/2019/quitting-analytics/">quitting Analytics</a>. If you're privacy conscious you may have already noticed that I run no tracking on this site so this article was right up my alley. <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190930-weekly-reading.html">INSPIRED</a> talked a lot about the value of gathering qualitative feedback alongside quantitative data -<br />
as I work on a digital product (and I promise I will talk about it more openly when I have more to say) I find it hugely valuable to see how successful people approach product management.</p>
<p>Garrett also wrote a book called <a href="https://startingandsustaining.com/book/">Starting and Sustaining</a> - it's now very firmly in my to-read pile.</p>
<p>AI can be used for a lot of unethical purposes - case in point, <a href="https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-10-21-yodo1s-ai-driven-whale-hunt-is-a-bad-look-for-the-games-industry-opinion">hunting for "whales" in the games industry</a>. A whale in a gaming context refers to a customer that spends significant amounts of money on a game, often in a free game. In this case, a customer who spent $150,000 in Transformers: Earth Wars.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The role game companies play in enabling compulsive behaviour is one of the primary concerns fuelling political and legal pressures of the kind embodied by this year's DCMS enquiry in the UK -- in which the participating game companies were described as "wilfully obtuse" around the key issues, and accused of only paying "lip service" to avoiding problematic monetisation methods.</p>
<p>What the DCMS would make of Yodo1's AI -- with its 87% success rate, rising to 95% -- is anyone's guess. But removing the last scintilla of human oversight from the gap between a player and $150,000 of their money is a very bad look for the games industry.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like a lot of my peers, I spent a significant amount of my teenage years playing online games like Runescape (in my case it was <strong>a lot</strong> of Diablo 2). <a href="https://qz.com/1608914/how-runescape-mmorpgs-shaped-millennials-during-childhood/">Quartz writes</a> about how that affected our view of the world, and how our behaviour was an insight into what was to come as the world became always online.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Computer games fostered sedentary and physically isolated play, and may have foreshadowed the environment we occupy today, where scores of people live with their noses in their phones, communing with friends and family at a distance rather than interacting with their immediate surroundings. Daily life becomes an interlude to online life, and thereâs an ever-present risk that weâll miss something in the âreal worldâ because weâre preoccupied with our digital selves.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Finally - TechCrunch wrote <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/15/how-to-get-people-to-open-your-emails/">a crap article</a> on email - EmailGeeks <a href="https://emailgeekscommunity.com/articles/rebuttal-to-techcrunch-how-to-get-people-to-open-your-emails">cleared up the mess</a>.</p>
Weekly Reading
2019-10-21T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20191014-weekly-reading/
<p>Continuing where <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190930-weekly-reading.html">One Word Kill</a> left off, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41771517-limited-wish">Limited Wish</a> by Mark Lawrence was an equally fun and light hearted read. There's frankly not a ton to say about it, it was fun and you should read it.</p>
<p>Right now I'm reading <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25768015-traction">Traction</a> by Garbriel Weinberg - it's quite a fortuitous time as work has just started on the development of the MVP for a digital product I'm running. This is as good a time as any to swat up on some basic marketing principles to hopefully hit the ground running when it's ready for prime time in a few months.</p>
<p>This is something I've anecdotally noticed personally, but it seems that phones could be <a href="https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/were-so-reliant-on-our-phones-theyve-warped-our-sense-of-space-and-time">warping our perception of time and space</a>. This seems like it should be more of a philosophical question, if our perception of time is changing, what does that say about our perception?</p>
<p>One of my favourite fantasy authors, and a philosopher in his own right contributed an essay entitled <a href="https://www.academia.edu/40569466/On_the_Death_of_Meaning">On the Death of Meaning</a> to a recent book entitled <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45007110-new-directions-in-philosophy-and-literature">New Directions in Philosophy and Literature</a>. Bakker's previous writing on what he calls <a href="https://www.academia.edu/1502945/The_Last_Magic_Show_A_Blind_Brain_Theory_of_the_Appearance_of_Consciousness">The Blind Brain Hypothesis</a> is a critical part of his fictional works and this latest essay is well worth spending a few hours on.</p>
<p>If you haven't been sitting under a rock for the last few weeks you may have seen that Eliud Kipchoge became the first person ever to break the sub 2-hour marathon. It took a team of <a href="https://qz.com/1727150/breaking-marathon-barrier-required-43-world-class-runners/">42 elite athletes</a> to help him get there.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kipchoge told Runnerâs World in August that breaking the 2-hour mark was more important than his other accolades, including his Olympic medals. But when the day finally came and Kipchoge charged through the storied time barrier, he gave credit to the extraordinary athletes who ran in front, beside, and behind him for nearly all of the 26.2 miles. âThe pacemakers did a great job, they are among the best runners of all time,â he said in a statement published by Ineos. âI thank them and appreciate them for accepting to do the job.â</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ever wonder how Apple make their money? <a href="https://qz.com/1712639/how-apple-makes-its-money/">Wonder no more</a>.</p>
<p>As the Chinese crackdown continues in Hong Kong, brands are starting to show the cracks. Among them, Nike, who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/sep/16/nikes-dream-crazy-advert-starring-colin-kaepernick-wins-emmy">just last year</a> ran a campaign with the slogan of "Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything".</p>
<p>Isn't it ironic then to see Nike (and others) cave in to Chinese pressure and remove merchandise in key Chinese stores following remarks made by the Houston Rockets General Manager. Ever a source of sanity in the world of advertising bullshit, Bob Hoffman hit the nail on the head in his <a href="http://createsend.com/t/d-189F72B95AD06BCB2540EF23F30FEDED">recent newsletter</a>.</p>
<p>A 93 year old former SS guard is <a href="https://www.afp.com/en/news/3954/former-ss-guard-93-trial-germany-complicity-doc-1lh0vp2">on trial in Germany</a> for complicity in the murder of more than 5,000 in a Nazi concentration camp. Good.</p>
<p>I've been playing a lot of Pokemon Go recently, sadly it seems like Niantic, the makers of the game are <a href="https://kotaku.com/the-creators-of-pokemon-go-mapped-the-world-now-theyre-1838974714">slurping as much unnecessary data as they can</a>. This is particularly troubling given the young demographic of the game.</p>
<p>Got a floppy butt? <a href="https://dieworkwear.com/post/188285602454/you-might-suffer-from-floppy-butt">You should buy trousers that fit properly</a>.</p>
Weekly Reading
2019-10-13T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20191007-weekly-reading/
<p>Given this week's <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/pge-california-outage.html">rolling blackouts</a> affecting millions of people in California courtesy of PG&E, it's a fortuitous time to have been reading about Enron, but I've been doing just that.</p>
<p>Bethany McLean's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19228776-the-smartest-guys-in-the-room">The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron</a> is the tell-all story behind the rise and crushing downfall of Enron, which at it's peak in 2000 was one of the most valuable companies in the world.</p>
<p>As the story unveils you start to grasp the cavalier attitudes that led to Enron's inevitable downfall, including Enron's involvement in the 2000 California electricity crisis, where Enron purposefully manipulated the market with such schemes as "Fat Boy" and "Death Star" to make hundreds of millions of dollars in trading profits - to the detriment of Californians.</p>
<p>Of course, this isn't just a story about an energy crisis, this is a story about the rampant unethical and illegal activity that led to the company inevitably declaring bankruptcy after their accounting schemes ran away from them.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Say you have a dog, but you need to create a duck on the financial statements. Fortunately, there are specific accounting rules for what constitutes a duck: yellow feet, white covering, orange beak. So you take the dog and paint its feet yellow and its fur white and you paste an orange plastic beak on its nose, and then you say to your accountants, âThis is a duck! Donât you agree that itâs a duck?â And the accountants say, âYes, according to the rules, this is a duck.â Everybody knows that itâs a dog, not a duck, but that doesnât matter, because youâve met the rules for calling it a duck.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>If you ever want to understand quite how badly capitalism can go wrong without adequate oversight, <strong>read this book</strong>.</em></p>
<p>One of the fun side effects of the Enron bankruptcy and subsequent fraud investigations by the SEC is that it gave us the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_Corpus">Enron Corpus</a>, a database of over 600,000 emails sent by some of Enron's key employees. This dataset has been key in developing machine learning and natural language processing techniques and <a href="https://qz.com/work/1546565/the-emails-that-brought-down-enron-still-shape-our-daily-lives/">continues to be used</a> to this day.</p>
<p>Want something a bit more fun? You can sign up to receive <a href="https://enron.email/">225,000 Enron emails in chronological order</a> over a period of 7, 14 or 28 years.</p>
<p>I'm now reading <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41771517-limited-wish">Limited Wish</a> by Mark Lawrence, the sequel to One Word Kill <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190930-weekly-reading.html">which I read last week</a>. This one's going to be a bit of a palate cleanser after all the accounting fraud I read about.</p>
<p>For all the digital marketers out there, on October 1st, the Court of Justice of the European Union made a ruling on the use of cookies, the wording is remarkably clear and unambiguous and leaves us in no doubt as to what the correct way of dealing with cookies is.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In todayâs judgment, the Court decides that the consent which a website user must give to the storage of and access to cookies on his or her equipment is not validly constituted by way of a prechecked checkbox which that user must deselect to refuse his or her consent.</p>
<p>That decision is unaffected by whether or not the information stored or accessed on the userâs equipment is personal data. EU law aims to protect the user from any interference with his or her private life, in particular, from the risk that hidden identifiers and other similar devices enter those usersâ terminal equipment without their knowledge.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Let's wait and see if anyone actually changes their behaviour, eh đ</p>
<p>On that note it's time to look at <a href="http://www.consentfultech.io/">Conseful Tech</a> again, a project that aims to raise awareness around building technology that obeys digital consent. Their definition of consent is well worth paying attention to.</p>
<p>A couple of very useful looking email tools were released last week that are well worth checking out. These are <a href="https://www.milliner.app/">Milliner</a> a WYSIWYG email editor and <a href="https://alter.email/">alter.email</a>, a kitchen sink of useful tools for cleaning your email HTML code.</p>
<p>Ironically, I've probably talked the ears off about my problems sleeping due to noise (from flatmates and whatever other random noise). Our world is getting noisier and with that comes a whole host of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/the-end-of-silence/598366/">negative effects to our health and general well being</a>, and things may only get worse from hereon in.</p>
<p>One of many similar tools, but <a href="https://sheet.best/">sheet.best</a> seems like a great way to build a simple prototype or MVP, turning a Google Sheet into a simple JSON API.</p>
<p>Ted Goas makes a compelling argument for <a href="https://uxplanet.org/the-business-case-for-good-design-31356308f10a#4504">the business case for good design</a>. Good design is something we can all explicitly experience and understand, it creates trust and frequently ends up as a signal booster for your marketing and advertising campaigns. Good design is a key brand differentiator and should absolutely be invested into.</p>
<p>This segues quite nicely into Wistia's recent <a href="https://wistia.com/learn/marketing/introducing-brand-affinity-marketing">Brand Affinity Marketing</a> campaign. Much like Hubspot before them with their now ubiquitous "Inbound Marketing" methodology, Wistia are trying to create a new marketing buzzword around what they call Brand Affinity - which is simply just another way of looking at content marketing. There's nothing groundbreaking here, but Wistia have long been one of the great B2B content marketing brands. This campaign is going to be a useful case study, much like Hubspot's before it.</p>
Weekly Reading
2019-10-06T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190930-weekly-reading/
<p>I'm back, hot off the heels of a week spent in Morocco. It was my second time there (following a trip last year) and I'm already thinking about when I can get there again next year, <a href="https://twitter.com/iamacyborg/status/1180803522113216512">I need more rugs</a>!</p>
<p>Being away for so long gave me lots of time to catch up on reading, two weeks ago I was finishing Scott Galloway's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36166396-the-four">The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google</a> which was a fascinating read. If you've been keeping up with the recent WeWork madness you've probably heard of Scott Galloway, his analysis of Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon in this book is insightful and thoroughly entertaining. While he focuses on the eponymous big four, he also provides some critical analysis of smaller (relative to the big four) companies like Uber which is well worth sinking your teeth into.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Four thousand Uber employees and their investors will split $80 billion (or more) as the 1,600,000 drivers working for Uber will see their wages crash to a level that makes them the working poor. We used to admire firms that created hundreds of thousands of middle- and upper-class jobs; now our heroes are firms that produce a dozen lords and hundreds of thousands of serfs.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hopefully surprising no one (I'm a massive dork), I've also been keeping up with the <em>12 years in the making</em> Horus Heresy series from Games Workshop. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45734813-the-solar-war">The Solar War</a> is the first part of the Siege of Terra subseries and book number 55 in the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/40983-the-horus-heresy">overall series</a> (not including all the novellas and Primarch books). I don't know how, but 55+ books in and I'm still a huge fan of the fictional world Games Workshop have managed to create. There's a case study yet to be written about their use of the White Dwarf magazine as an acquisition and content marketing powerhouse.</p>
<p>Having read an article from Marty Cagan <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190909-weekly-reading.html">a couple weeks ago</a>, I just had to read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35249663-inspired">INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love</a>, a book about effective product management in modern tech companies. In short, it thoroughly lived up to it's title.</p>
<p>I've been not-so-secretly working away at a product idea for a number of months now, and this book gave me the kick up the arse I needed to step back into gear with it and provided some real actionable insights to build it more effectively. This is absolutely a must-read for anyone working in a tech company or for anyone thinking of building their own product.</p>
<p>Mark Lawrence is one of my favourite fantasy authors and his first foray into sci-fi with <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40383616-one-word-kill">One Word Kill</a> didn't disappoint. A fun time-travelling jaunt set in the 80's. It's not as adult as his fantasy trilogies but was a nice quick and entertaining read, particularly after the last three books.</p>
<p>Finally, I read John Doerr's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37902327-measure-what-matters">Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with Okrs</a>. We've started a very slight roll-out of OKRs at work and I wanted to know what it was all about. I highly recommend reading it alongside Marty Cagan's INSPIRED - Cagan talks frequently about OKRs but never goes into much detail so this is a great companion and a great resource for your professional life.</p>
<p>Fascinatingly, Doerr does a deep dive on YouTube's obsession with increasing their daily watch time to 1 billion hours per day and yet somehow, despite mentioning ethics in the book more than once, he manages to completely ignore the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-brazil.html">deeply disturbing algorithm changes</a> that got them there. When a company focuses for so long on a single objective, and this was a 4 year objective for YouTube, it's easy to see how ethical constraints can easily be disregarded as staff become increasingly desperate to hit their numbers.</p>
<p>On the subject of unethical companies, I'm ~50% through Bethany McLean's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19228776-the-smartest-guys-in-the-room">The Smartest Guys in the Room</a>, an engrossing postmortem of Enron. Hopefully I'll be able to talk about it next week!</p>
<p>While I've been away from a proper screen for a solid week, here are the better articles I came across while I was sitting pool-side:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://conversionxl.com/blog/dont-build-growth-teams/">Iâve Built Multiple Growth Teams. Hereâs Why I Wonât Do It Again.</a></li>
<li><a href="https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/wework-and-counterfeit-capitalism">WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/17/style/personality-tests-office.html">Personality Tests Are the Astrology of the Office</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.artnome.com/news/2019/9/24/an-interview-with-art-forger-robert-jc-driessen">An Interview With Art Forger Robert J.C. Driessen</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-of-aloha-hawaiian-shirt">The Not-So-Chill History of Hawaiâiâs Breeziest Shirt</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hbr.org/2019/10/entrepreneurs-who-sleep-more-are-better-at-spotting-good-ideas">Entrepreneurs Who Sleep More Are Better at Spotting Good Ideas</a></li>
<li><a href="https://ymedialabs.com/progressive-web-apps">Why Progressive Web Apps Are The Future of Mobile Web</a></li>
</ul>
Weekly Reading
2019-09-23T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190916-weekly-reading/
<p>Keeping things short this week, I'm still reading Scott Galloway's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36166396-the-four">The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google</a>, which is excellent and insightful so far.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Brick and mortarâs troubles have been laid at the feet of digital disruption. There is some truth to that. However, digital sales are still only 12 percent of retail. Itâs not stores that are dying, but the middle class, and the stores serving them. Most that are located in, or serving, middle-class households are struggling. By comparison, stores in affluent neighborhoods are holding strong. The middle class used to be 61 percent of Americans. Now they are the minority, representing less than half the population ⊠the rest being lower or upper income.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>More to come once it's finished.</p>
<p>I kicked this week off reading about the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/style/oh-behave.html">fragility of Silicon Valley's VC's</a>, specifically, their inability to deal with important and valid criticism. I wonder how we'll see this one play out with the <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/7982/adam-neumann-wework-absurd">unfolding WeWork drama</a>.</p>
<p>I've done <em>a lot</em> of job hopping over the years, so I found <a href="https://qz.com/work/1704125/what-actually-motivates-people-at-work/">this article</a> by Quartz fascinating, and led to a fair bit of self reflection on just <em>why</em> I'd chosen to leave certain employers. I think that'd have to be the subject of a whole other article if I were to go into it though.</p>
<p>Spend any amount of time playing video games and you're likely to come across a whole range of user interfaces, but video games can provide inspiration outside of their own context, as <a href="https://jenson.org/games/">Scott Jenson wonderfully explains</a>.</p>
<p>Google search is broken, would it be possible to <a href="https://bradleytaunt.com/better-search-results/">bring trust back into the equation</a>?</p>
<p>I love the idea of bespoke clothing, but <a href="https://www.permanentstyle.com/2019/09/is-bespoke-worth-it.html">is it worth it</a>? I guess that depends on what your definition of <strong>it</strong> is.</p>
<p>I'm writing this from a personal website, so I guess it shouldn't come as any surprise, but I really enjoyed reading Tobias Van Schneider's <a href="https://www.vanschneider.com/a-love-letter-to-personal-websites">love letter to the personal website</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>At the risk of sounding religious about this, and maybe I am, our personal websites are our temples. They remain the one space on the internet where we decide how we are introduced to friends, potential employees and strangers. Itâs a place where we can express, on our terms, who we are and what we offer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I got my first job in email marketing in October '11 and one of the first resources I came across was Laura and Steve Atkins' Word to the Wise. Ever since, it's been a great resource I've used to stay on top of what's going on in the world of deliverability, even if a lot of it mostly goes over my head. Articles like this one on <a href="https://wordtothewise.com/2019/09/when-you-cant-get-a-response/">what to do if you can't get a response from a postmaster team</a> provide great actionable advice you absolutely should learn from.</p>
<p><a href="https://theoutline.com/post/7929/the-square-credit-card-reader-sound-is-dissonant-and-terrifying">The hills are alive with the sound of money</a>. Ever wondered what your credit card sounds like? The answer lies in those old Square dongles.</p>
<p>This probably comes as no surprise to the #emailgeeks community who've seen me banging on about yoga for a year - but it turns out <a href="https://qz.com/1307380/yoga-and-meditation-boost-your-ego-say-psychology-researchers/?">yoga practitioners may not be as chill as they like to claim they are</a>.</p>
<p>artnet published their third <a href="http://www.artnet.com/artnet-intelligence-report/">report</a> on the latest trends in the art market. There are some real insights in here worth looking into.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>$46,281<br />
The average price of an artwork<br />
sold at auction in the first half<br />
of 2019â28 percent less than in<br />
the equivalent period last year,<br />
when the average price hit $61,699.<br />
What happened? For the first time<br />
in several years, the number<br />
of works sold at auction is going<br />
up while total sales are going<br />
down. There are simply fewer<br />
high-priced outliers to drive up<br />
the average price.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sticking to the subject of art, I can already hear the gnashing of teeth over <em><a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/hillary-clinton-reads-emails-venice-art-show-1648867">but her emails...</a></em></p>
<p>I don't know anything about concrete, but I know <a href="https://www.citylab.com/design/2019/09/kennedy-center-reach-steven-holl-concrete-build-material/597562/">I like this type</a>. I think a trip to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is in order if I ever find myself in D.C, the building expansion looks incredible.</p>
<p>You've got until December 13th to enter the <a href="https://www.dpnetwork.org.uk/Awards/">DPN Rosemary Smith Award for Responsible Marketing</a>. If you or your team are fighting the good fight and trying to engage in effective marketing while protecting the data rights of your customers you could stand to win ÂŁ1,000.</p>
Weekly Reading
2019-09-17T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190909-weekly-reading/
<p>This week's been pretty productive on the book reading front, I quickly worked my way through Orwell's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24104049-why-i-write">Why I Write</a> which was fascinating, albeit the British stereotyping quickly became tiresome. I found it interesting to compare Orwell's views on British and European values and the rise of fascism across Europe - things that worryingly have been on the rise in recent years.</p>
<p>I first came across Yanis Varoufakis' work back when he <a href="http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/">worked at Valve</a>, the video game company (back when they still made games) and thoroughly enjoyed the few blogs he posted there. So when I was browsing the Economics section of Waterstones I was drawn to his book, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39808472-talking-to-my-daughter">A Brief History of Capitalism</a>. I know next to nothing in economics, so this was precisely the dumbed down view I needed to dip my toe into the subject.</p>
<p>I've heard and read a lot about Eric Ries' <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12969026-the-lean-startup">Lean Startup</a> in the last few years, so it provided some interesting and rather light reading when I was abroad in Granada. I'm working on a lil' something something so there was a lot to take away from this, particularly around the value of quickly developing and testing an MVP, something I hope to have done by the end of the year đ</p>
<p>Finally, I'm now reading Scott Galloway's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36166396-the-four">The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google</a>. More thoughts to follow next week.</p>
<p>Profitwell continue to bring out some of the most well-researched and produced content out there, and <a href="https://www.profitwell.com/blog/how-do-discounts-impact-growth">this piece on discounting</a> certainly didn't disappoint.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Discounts are one of the worst tactics you can use to grow your business, because like a virus theyâre a ticking time bomb for your growth.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite what you've read elsewhere, and what you're probably thinking, <a href="https://going-medieval.com/2019/08/02/i-assure-you-medieval-people-bathed/">medieval people bathed</a>, as Dr Eleanor Janega explains quite authoritatively. Not quite the smelly peasants we think about, eh?</p>
<p>This is something I'm sure a lot of people working in tech have come across, but what actually are product teams? Marty Cagan puts together a compelling case to explain the difference between <a href="https://svpg.com/product-vs-feature-teams/">product and feature teams</a>.</p>
<p>There was a great article in the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/16/superfans-a-love-story">New Yorker</a> on what modern fandom means and how it came to be. Not going to lie, superfans weird me out.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexspence/boris-johnson-dominic-cummings-voter-data">Boris is trying to fuck us</a>. Is the ICO going to come to our <a href="https://twitter.com/ICOnews/status/1172085036012711936">rescue</a>?</p>
<p>We've all come across poorly implemented browser Push notifications, but it doesn't have to be that way Stephanie Walker wrote the perfect guide on <a href="https://stephaniewalter.design/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-not-fck-up-push-notifications/">how to not fuck up push notifications</a>. Speaking anecdotally, my team at DM Companies implemented these on one of the sites we worked on. For our use case, we saw a consistent uplift vs the same message delivered via email. This is absolutely a channel that can work dramatically well, just be responsible with it, duh.</p>
<p>Bit short this week huh? I spent a long weekend in Granada - the Alhambra is fucking incredible. Get your head away from your screen and go visit sometime.</p>
Weekly Reading
2019-09-08T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190902-weekly-reading/
<p>As you may have seen the <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190819-weekly-reading.html">last</a> <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190826-weekly-reading.html">couple</a> of weeks, I've been slowly plodding through Catherine Nixey's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35450727-the-darkening-age">The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World</a>. It turned out to be a deeply frustrating read â â the topic is one that is fascinating; namely the destruction of the classical world by the rise of Christianity within the Roman Empire. The frustration begins and ends with the writing, Nixey is quick to turn the subject into an emotional argument, which given the sheer breadth of the art and knowledge we lost at the hands of the early Christians is understandable but frustrating when you're trying to separate fact from fiction.</p>
<p>What's clear is that modern society has suffered hugely at the hands of Christianity, with the loss of uncounted books, the maiming of priceless statuary, the wholesale destruction of ancient Roman and Greek temples and the murder of philosophers, scientists and mathematicians (and more, of course) at the hands of roving illiterate and uneducated Christians. This religious madness continues unabated, of course, with ancient sites across Syria, Iraq and Libya <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_cultural_heritage_by_ISIL">suffering at the hands of ISIL</a>. Plus ça change...</p>
<p>I also read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/81779.The_Symposium">Plato's Symposium</a>, which, while short, provided a bit of a palate cleanser after the last book. I'm not entirely sure what to think about it, in all honesty â â I'm not well enough read to provide any real fundamental criticism other than I enjoyed it. I find it fascinating how far society regressed in ~600 years from this to the depths of Christian destruction of everything Plato and his peers built.</p>
<p>I picked up a couple of the books in Penguin's Great Ideas series, the first of which was Lao Tzu's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6324044-tao-te-ching">Tao Te Ching</a>. Much like The Symposium, I'm not well read enough to really break this down, however it's certainly a starting point and I'll be looking for some broader books on Taoism that can break down the subject for me.</p>
<p>I particularly enjoyed Chapter 44:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Your name or your person, <br /><br />
Which is dearer? <br /><br />
Your person or your goods, <br /><br />
Which is worth more? <br /><br />
Gain or loss, <br /><br />
Which is a greater bane? <br /><br />
That is why excessive meanness <br /><br />
Is sure to lead to great expense; <br /><br />
Too much store <br /><br />
Is sure to end in immense loss. <br /><br />
Know contentment <br /><br />
And you will suffer no disgrace; <br /><br />
Know when to stop <br /><br />
And you will meet with no danger. <br /><br />
You can then endure. <br /></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Finally, in the same series as the last book I'm reading Orwell's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24104049-why-i-write">Why I Write</a>. More to come on that subject next week, I'm sure.</p>
<p>This week I've been reading a lot of the content the folks at Basecamp have published - an article titled <a href="https://m.signalvnoise.com/lets-bury-the-hustle/">Let's Bury the Hustle</a> struck a particular chord with me. I've always found keeping a healthy work-life balance to be challenging, so it's a breath of fresh air to see a company championing the idea that work is just work, maybe it's time to experience life itself.</p>
<p>It seemed only natural that I'd be interested in <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-7-ancient-roman-sculptures">an article on ancient Roman sculptures</a> after finishing Nixey's book. The title of "7 Ancient Roman Sculptures You Need to Know" is laughable, but apparently that's the only way to get people interested in this stuff.</p>
<p>Excel announced a new <a href="https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Excel-Blog/Announcing-XLOOKUP/ba-p/811376">XLOOKUP</a> function. It seems like a pretty solid replacement for the endless INDEX MATCH formulas I'd normally use across my spreadsheets.</p>
<p>The capitalist surveillance state continues unabated, Brave - a privacy focused web browser discovered some decidedly <a href="https://djmag.com/longreads/facial-recognition-technology-coming-club-near-you">not GDPR compliant</a> behaviour from the hands of Google, clubs in London are being forced to adopt <a href="https://djmag.com/longreads/facial-recognition-technology-coming-club-near-you">facial recognition technology</a> in their venues by local councils and the IAB published a <a href="https://iabtechlab.com/blog/evolution-of-internet-identity-privacy-tracking/">laughable attempt</a> at whitewashing their criminal behaviour by begging for the government to allow them to track individuals, all in the name of pushing unwanted ads into the face of uncaring consumers.</p>
<p>The French LINC (Laboratoire dâInnovation NumĂ©rique de la CNIL - the CNIL being the French regulatory body for data protection) wrote about a framework through which to <a href="https://linc.cnil.fr/dark-patterns-quelle-grille-de-lecture-pour-les-reguler">regulate dark patterns</a> on the web. The article is in French but well worth a read via your translation service of choice.</p>
<p>Ever wonder what happened to Bebo? The folks at Gizmodo wrote <a href="https://gizmodo.com/why-these-social-networks-failed-so-badly-1836996164">a great obituary</a> for all those social networks of old. The web sure seemed like a more innocent and exciting place back in those Myspace days.</p>
<p>Is science sexist? It appears that <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-09-analysis-science-sexist.html">the answer is yes</a>.</p>
<p>I make no secret of how frustrating I find bottomless optimism and cheerfulness. Maybe instead of running away from <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/7906/toxicity-actually-good">"toxic" thought</a>, we should embrace it to make something better of ourselves.</p>
<p>And finally, I'm going to leave you with an article about <a href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/09/inspired-design-decisions-alexey-brodovitch/">Alexey Brodovitch</a> and how you can mirror his iconic work through modern web techniques.</p>
<p><em>Yes, the email designer in me is crying at the lost opportunity too.</em></p>
Weekly Reading
2019-09-02T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190826-weekly-reading/
<p>I'm <em>still</em> working my way through Catherine Nixey's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35450727-the-darkening-age">The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World</a>, a couple days to go and it'll be done with it đ€. It's not a bad book per say, but, well, I guess I'll get into it next week when I'm done with it.</p>
<p>I started this week off by reading an article on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/opinion/shipping-container-homes.html">shipping containers</a>, specifically their use in architecture. I don't think a better symbol of the global economy exists, but I sure as shit wouldn't want to live in one.</p>
<p>This article's being doing the rounds of the email community since it was published early last month, but I've been a bit slow on the uptake. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/was-e-mail-a-mistake">Was e-mail a mistake?</a> Using a hyphen in email certainly is, but let's ignore that glaring oversight. I've never been in a position where I find myself inundated by a million emails at work and I've certainly never been one of those inbox zero folks (as the 47k unread emails in my promo tab can tell you) but increasingly I understand the frustration of being inundated by endless messages and notifications from other services. This article doesn't talk about the attention economy, but that's precisely what it's about. It's not an email problem and we need to look at the bigger picture and realise that it's a lifestyle problem.</p>
<p>I've started seeing contactless donation points dotted around the city, most recently at the Wallace Collection, but as we move towards an increasingly cashless society it's nice to see them being used for <a href="https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/34263/city-of-london-installs-contactless-donation-points-to-help-rough-sleepers">charitable causes</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-08-14/san-francisco-scoot-tenderloin-bird">Not all is good in scooter land</a> with high-poverty areas of San Fracisco not being served by Scoot, despite promises being made to the contrary.</p>
<p>Renowned fashion designer Ann Demeulemeester's <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/style/ann-demeulemeester-doesnt-miss-fashion-at-all-she-has-other-plans.html">enjoying the country life</a> and making some gorgeous homeware in the process.</p>
<p>The Jeffrey Epstein story keeps unfolding, with news surfacing of <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/154826/jeffrey-epsteins-intellectual-enabler">John Brockman's</a> involvement in Epstein's opaque world. This is a fascinating read on how the world's of culture, science and finance collide and one agent's involvement in the very middle of it.</p>
<p>Ever see a story about a weird patent filed by a tech company? Here's <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2019/08/amazon-sony-facebook-strange-patents.html">the reason why</a>.</p>
<p>The G7 summit was held in Biarritz last week (24-26th August), <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/26/biarritz-g7-syria-us-china-trade">is it still fit for purpose</a>?</p>
<p>Derek, aka Die, Workwear wrote an excellent article on the <a href="https://dieworkwear.com/post/187176321489/the-slow-death-of-glamour">Slow Death of Glamour</a>, following the recent bankruptcy filing of Barneys and the tectonic shift in fashion marketing we've seen in the last decade from glossy fashion magazines to social media influencers.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Perhaps the real problem is that the age of authenticity killed our ability to believe in glamour. Without any reason to go to Barneyâs physical locations, getting out of the house just became an extra step to acquire something you can get online.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thanks to <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/7867/a-good-place-every-noise-at-once-does-its-darnedest-to-create-order-out-of-chaos">The Outline</a> I discovered a fascinating project called <a href="http://everynoise.com/">Every Noise at Once</a> that seeks to map out all of the various musical genres that can be found on Spotify. So far it's a really fun way of discovering new music that sounds similar to stuff I'm already into.</p>
<p>Considering investing in Uber? Yeah, <a href="https://qz.com/1693843/uber-eats-will-lose-money-until-at-least-2024-say-cowen-analysts/">you probably shouldn't do that</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/27/20833761/nasa-iss-international-space-station-alleged-crime-anne-mcclain-jurisdicition-framework">A crime's been committed in outer space</a>, now what?</p>
<p>I love Moneylab, their latest challenge is to <a href="https://www.moneylab.co/mrr/">reach $15k in MRR in 6 months</a>, you should follow their progress, you're sure to learn something on the way.</p>
<p>In a similar vein, and unashamedly taken from that last article, <a href="https://justinjackson.ca/costs">let's talk about startup costs</a>. I'm working on a 'lil project right now (đ) and this was a much needed read.</p>
<p>The tracking debates continue unabated, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/23/opinion/data-internet-privacy-tracking.html">Farhad Manjoo shows us</a> just how much data can be slurped up in a few web browsing sessions. On a similar line the clowns at the IAB are <a href="https://www.thedrum.com/news/2019/08/21/iab-europe-issues-updated-gdpr-compliancy-protocol">desperate to save their skin</a>, here's hoping the <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/digital-marketing-post-gdpr.html">recent cookie guidance</a> from the ICO puts the final nail in the online ad industry's coffin.</p>
<p>and finally, hot off the back of <a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190819-weekly-reading.html">last week's book finish</a> (On China by Henry Kissinger), QZ have published a <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1686069/chinas-growing-presence-in-africa/">thorough breakdown</a> on China's increasing economic presence on the African continent.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In just over two decades, China has grown to become the biggest foreign player on the continent. It is now Africaâs largest trade partner, its largest infrastructure funder, and its fastest-growing source of foreign direct investment, pledging $60 billion in 2018 versus just $5 billion in 2006. Top officials from China regularly tour the continent, with premiers and foreign ministers making 79 visits to 43 different states between 2007 and 2017, according to consultancy Development Reimagined.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<p>Looking for something to listen to? <a href="https://beliefdefect.bandcamp.com/album/decadent-yet-depraved">Belief Defect's the way to go</a>.</p>
Digital Marketing in the Age of the GDPR
2019-08-26T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/digital-marketing-post-gdpr/
<p><em>What does marketing look like in post GDPR world where everyone is compliant?</em></p>
<p>Last June, to the surprise of many, <a href="https://twitter.com/adam_rose/status/1140151337834962944">a Tweet</a> was widely shared online, showing the ICO admitting that their own cookie policy "doesn't meet the required GDPR standard".</p>
<p>In early July, this was followed up with <a href="https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-pecr/guidance-on-the-use-of-cookies-and-similar-technologies/">new guidance on cookie usage</a> that clearly exposes the way the industry has been mistreating customer data, and the ways we need to change.</p>
<h2>Digital Marketing Today</h2>
<p>First, let's take a look at some ways digital marketers collect data:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<h3>Form Submission</h3>
<p>Unsurprisingly, data collected when a user submits a form is often used in marketing, for example an email address collected via a form will typically be sent marketing emails, or shared with Facebook to receive targeted advertising. It is not always explicitly explained at the point of form submission what data will be used for what and where the collected data may end up being sent to.</p>
</li>
<li>
<h3>Cookies</h3>
<ol>
<li>**Analytics**
Sites will typically use a cookie-based analytics tool, such as Google Analytics to identify how individuals use a website. This allows them to see precisely what pages an individual has visited, what elements of the website they've interacted with, what devices they're using to access the site, where they're physically located (via IP), etc. Typically, this information is collected by third party services such as Google or Adobe.</li><br />
</ol></li>
</ul>
<li>**Personalisation**
These cookies are used to collect precise behavioural information about a unique individual. For example, knowing what someone has added to their shopping basket on an ecommerce site, or keeping track of what pages someone has looked at to build up a personalised behavioural profile to later target them with more direct product messaging. These cookies can be first or third party, meaning that information is often sent off to opaque third party services that provide some form of personalisation engine to the business.</li><br />
<li>**Retargeting**
Cookies like Facebook or Google Doubleclick (amongst others) collect information on an individual's website visit for the purpose of later identifying that individual across multiple separate websites which allows the cookie owner to build up a large data profile on the individual. Examples of the type of information collected are<sup>1</sup>:<ul>
<li>Age</li>
<li>Gender</li>
<li>Location</li>
<li>Interests</li>
<li>Behaviour on your website</li>
<li>Behaviour on search engines</li>
<li>Behaviour on social media</li></ul>
This data collection happens in the background of most websites and tends to be incredibly opaque as to how and what data is collected specifically and where it is sent to.</li><br />
<li>**Advertising**
Due to the way advertising works online, a publisher (a site or app running adverts) typically uses an auction system to determine which adverts to display to an individual user. This auction system involves sending data back and forth from the website to numerous online advertising exchanges to determine which specific advert should be shown.<br /><br />It should therefore come as no surprise that this process allows advertisers to create highly specific profiles of individuals and their behaviour online as they collect data through this auction mechanism.</li>
<ul>
<li>
<h3>Telemetry</h3>
<p>When you use applications on your desktop,mobile or on the web, information about your specific interactions with the product may be recorded and sent directly to the product developer, for example to understand what specifically you have interacted with. <a href="https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2014/03/20/instrumenting-your-app-for-telemetry-and-analytics/">Microsoft calls this data a "gold mine"</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<h3>Email Tracking</h3>
<p>When you receive a marketing email from a company, the email will contain tracking pixels telling the sender when (and often where and with what device) you open the email. They also contain tracking links allowing them to know specifically what an individual has clicked on in a received email. Furthermore the email may also contain additional third party tracking which function like the retargeting and advertising cookies mentioned above.</p>
</li>
<li>
<h3>Data brokerage</h3>
<p>Companies like Experian and Equifax allow others to purchase personal information about you so that they can then target you for marketing. This frequently occurs without your knowledge or consent.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><em>This is by no means an exhaustive list and brands and marketers continue to innovate in the ways in which they can acquire your data without your express knowledge or consent.</em></p>
<p>Taken in combination, you can see how a business can quickly start to build an incredibly detailed view of an individual, how they can start to access that data directly as a first party or even start to target individuals through data held by third parties, such as when running advertising campaigns.</p>
<p>Ostensibly, marketers like to tell themselves that this is all above board â data is collected usually but not always for specific purposes and this data provides value to the business and hopefully (we like to tell ourselves) to the individual. The problem is in the opaqueness of the processes involved and the lack of consent or even knowledge by the end-user about the scope of the data collection taking place</p>
<h2>So what are we doing with all this data?</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<h3>Programmatic Advertising</h3>
<p>Advertising based on individual user profiles and website placement. Look at any news website or your Instagram feed and you'll see this in action.</p>
</li>
<li>
<h3>Retargeting</h3>
<p>Similar to programmatic but based explicitly on targeting people who've performed a specific action that has been tracked, such as looking at a particular product.</p>
</li>
<li>
<h3>Targeted Advertising</h3>
<p>Sending email addresses or phone numbers to Google or Facebook so that individuals can be specifically targeted or lookalike audiences can be built based on a specific subset of customers provided by email address or phone number.</p>
</li>
<li>
<h3>Email Marketing</h3>
<p>Sending emails to individuals to get them to perform a specific action, such as signing up to your product or purchasing your latest widget.</p>
</li>
<li>
<h3>SMS</h3>
<p>Similar to email, but via SMS. For example informing your customers of a sale or for shorter and more actionable messaging.</p>
</li>
<li>
<h3>Push notifications</h3>
<p>Like email but frequently based on more specific actions having occurred in an app, for example someone responding to a message you posted on social media or an action taking place in a mobile game.</p>
</li>
<li>
<h3>Optimisation</h3>
<p>We look at data collected from telemetry and various cookies to optimise our products and our sales funnels</p>
</li>
<li>
<h3>Nothing at all</h3>
<p>Sometimes businesses collect data and just let it sit in a database without doing anything with it, go figure đ€·ââïž</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><em>This is by no means an exhaustive list and is merely used to demonstrate some common scenarios in which data is used for marketing.</em></p>
<p>We'd all like to think all this data is being handled carefully and responsibly, but ask any marketer and they'll have stories to tell about customer data being shared across the company through CSV files or the business CRM, without any oversight or mechanism to protect an individual's private information.</p>
<h2>So where does that leave us?</h2>
<p>Thanks to this new guidance, some things have become abundantly clear:</p>
<ul>
<li>You cannot rely on implied consent to use cookies</li>
<li>Analytics cookies require consent</li>
<li>Legitimate Interests cannot be used as a reason for processing analytics or advertising cookies</li>
</ul>
<p>This is a <strong>BIG</strong> deal. Websites currently assume you consent to cookies until you tell them otherwise and will gleefully suck up as much data as they can collect until you stop them. This new guidance makes it explicitly clear that this is no longer allowed and that a business <em>must</em> obtain consent before they engage in these activities.</p>
<h3>Analytics</h3>
<p>Dead. Switch to a log-based analytics system and strip out PII. You might be able to obtain consent for your analytics cookies but hey, who am I kidding, we've trained people to hit the big â button on popups so they'll close your popup immediately without giving you consent.</p>
<h3>Programmatic advertising</h3>
<p>You'll still be able to target people based on the website you wish to place an advert on, but advertising brokers will no longer have monolithic profiles of profiles you can target based on interests, demographics, etc. This is a big loss for businesses and a <em>HUGE</em> win for individual privacy.</p>
<h3>Retargeting</h3>
<p>Dead. Deader than dead. Good luck obtaining consent when you have to explain to your users that you want to stalk them around the web for products they spent all of 3 seconds looking at on your site. Good fucking riddance.</p>
<h3>Targeted Advertising</h3>
<p>Dead. No one will want to give you consent to send off their personal data to third parties. Advertisers will also struggle to obtain interest and demographic data making lookalike audiences much less valuable.</p>
<h3>Email</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/gdpr-email-tracking.html">Legitimate interest isn't good enough</a>, you need to obtain consent for marketing emails<sup>2</sup> and unless you have explicitly collected consent for tracking you cannot track how individuals behave within your emails.</p>
<h3>SMS</h3>
<p>Like email, you're going to need to collect consent to use SMS for marketing. There's some real opportunties to demonstrate the value of SMS to customers here, you'll just have to think creatively.</p>
<h3>Push Notifications</h3>
<p>You'll need consent, but you already needed that. Push notifications are probably going to suffer the least because there have been solid mechanisms in place for years to prevent misuse from marketers.</p>
<h3>Social</h3>
<p>Do you <em>really</em> want to be paying Facebook or YouTube given what they're up to?</p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>The big winners are going to be the channels which can most clearly communicate an obvious value exchange between the individual customer and the business. Unsurprisingly, given what I do, I think these are channels like email, SMS and push notifications. Once you've built an existing relationship with an individual, they are more likely to see the benefit in giving you permission to message them via these channels.</p>
<p>Advertising(â°ïž) in all forms is the clear loser - this new cookie guidance effectively put the nail in the coffin of digital advertising as we know it. You'll no longer be able to target individuals based on what pages of your website they've visited or their interests, geographical location or demographic data. <a href="https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/company/advertising-and-affiliates/">DuckDuckGo already demonstrates</a> how we can move towards a more compliant and a more ethical take on advertising. Budgets will inevitable suffer as performance decreases across digital advertising channels.</p>
<p>Customer acquisition optimisation is going to suffer. Without clear analytics across the board we'll have to do a lot more work done to understand how individual campaigns have performed. There are plenty of ways we can do this, for example having personalised landing pages per campaign and measuring the aggregate number of visits to that page (ie without PII to identify unique visits) vs the number of purchases or form submissions. I think we'll see more investment in this area as gauging the effectiveness of our marketing spend becomes increasingly challenging.</p>
<p>Marketers are going to have to adapt to these changes and we're going to have to take a very close look at how permission is currently obtained in mobile apps. It's clear that they're leading the way in this area and understand that progressively obtaining permission (consent, in our case) based on specific interactions (for example, asking for camera permissions when the app user wishes to take a photo in the app) is the way we're going to have to go.</p>
<p>To this purpose it behoves all of us in marketing to propose a new framework for ethical marketing and more purposeful and transparent data collection. It is a position of extreme arrogance on the behalf of marketers and businesses to believe that our bottom line is more important than an individual's privacy. What the EU has achieved with the GDPR is making it clear that this is absolutely not the case.</p>
<p><strong>In an age in which marketing data is used to enable electoral fraud and strip our civil liberties, we need to do better.</strong></p>
<br />
<br />
****
<br />
<h4>Notes and References</h4>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.targetinternet.com/digital-marketing-guide-to-cookies/">Taken from TargetInternet</a></li>
<li>there are of course other types of email and reasons other than marketing to send emails which I won't cover here</li>
</ol>
Weekly Reading
2019-08-24T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190819-weekly-reading/
<p>Henry Kissinger's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14799927-on-china">On China</a> was a fascinating read. Deeply insightful and provided some real perspective on the Communist Party of China and how confucianism still leads and influences modern policy in the country. Kissinger is entirely too easy on Mao and the millions of deaths he caused as a result of his policies and the political upheaval that he lead - but I certainly learnt a lot about the history of the country and <em>why</em> some of the diplomatic policies were the way that they were. A hugely fascinating read if you want to understand what's going on in the world right now and how we got there.</p>
<p>I started reading Catherine Nixey's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35450727-the-darkening-age">The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World</a> on Friday, it's, errrr, not off to a good start, but I'll hold off on my judgement until I've read the whole thing.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, the climate continues to be a pressing issue - immigration and mass migrations as a result of armed conflict have been serious issues for hundreds of years, but soon we'll start seeing these mass migrations occur as a result of climate change, with recent examples in <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/7823/the-slow-erosion-of-northern-pakistan-batura-glacier-gilgit-baltistan-passu">Pakistan</a> and <a href="https://www.citylab.com/environment/2019/08/alexandria-climate-change-sea-level-canals-al-max-fishing/596593/">Egypt</a> showing how glacial thawing and rising sea levels will impact people's lives and livelihoods.</p>
<p>We already know <a href="https://www.citylab.com/environment/2015/02/rising-sea-levels-are-already-making-miamis-floods-worse/385619/">some of the damage</a> this can cause, we need to do something about it <strong>now</strong>.</p>
<p>Monoculture farming continues to be an environmental distaster, the most recent victim being the <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/banana-disease-tr4-latin-america">humble banana</a>, which is now threatened by a fungus that could kill the plant off entirely.</p>
<p>Now seems like a good time to familiarise yourself with Yvon Chouinard and how <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/19/patagonias-philosopher-king">his environmental beliefs</a> have shaped the apparel company Patagonia. Business <em>can</em> help us save the environment - but only if we consume less and are more thoughtful about our purchasing habits.</p>
<p>I've heard people talking about Morning Brew for a while now but <a href="https://medium.com/the-mission/how-morning-brews-referral-program-built-an-audience-of-1-5-million-subscribers-3315482c1aa5">this article about their referral program</a> is deeply insightful, without the toxic "growthhacker" mentality than you often see on topics like this. Covering everything from how they technically went about setting up the program to their reasoning behind their gift tiers, including breakdowns for CAC, there's a lot to learn from this.</p>
<p>While you're here, you should <a href="https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/r/?kid=e4310460">sign up to their daily email</a> as well (That's a referral link đ, I want the mug!).</p>
<p>I'm a big fan of Wikipedia, and some of the <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/7749/creepy-wikipedia-explainer">absurd policies and fringe interests</a> that run on the site.</p>
<p>Speaking of Wikipedia, did you know that it's built on an open source PHP platform called Mediawiki? <a href="https://twitter.com/jacobian/status/1163453179499089921">Jacobian on Twitter</a> got me thinking about the good old days, when you could get software running on a server without needing to understand command lines, containers, front end frameworks and all that other gubbins. It's still a language that's used all across the web, including <a href="https://slack.engineering/taking-php-seriously-cf7a60065329">Slack</a>, so maybe it's time we started taking it seriously again?</p>
<p>Want to save capitalism? Maybe we should all just be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/opinion/business-roundtable.html">getting paid more</a> so we can consume more, or, you know, consume more ethically.</p>
<p>The videogame industry has a <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/7803/are-video-games-political-conservative-liberal">politics problem</a>, and an audience that's too uneducated to understand that supporting the status quo is, in and of itself a political stance. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/18/the-mainstream-media-have-still-not-learned-the-lessons-of-gamergate/">Gamergate exposed an ugly underbelly</a> to male hobby led online communities, and it appears some people have been taking note. Disney appear to be <a href="https://twitter.com/keefstuart/status/1164101226889383936">weaponising their audience</a> in their recent failed negotiation attempts with Sony with regards to the Spider Man franchise.</p>
<p>On the subject of corporate cowardice in the face of an increasingly politically aware society, <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/we-will-continue-to-represent-men-at-their-best-gillettes-backflip-after-toxic-masculinity-backlash/news-story/8ae70a5abc31280fc23711dcf7c30e5e">Gilette just backtracked their "toxic masculinity" campaign</a>. Sigh.</p>
<p>I watched Netflix's The Great Hack a few weeks ago, while there were certainly no deep revelations if you've been paying attention over the last couple years, it is beginning to <a href="https://www.mumbrella.asia/2019/08/why-netflixs-the-great-hack-should-make-all-of-us-in-marketing-uncomfortable">expose the darker side of digital marketing</a>. Big tech platforms are responsible for a lot of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-brazil.html">problems we're seeing in society today</a>, so it should come as no surprise that <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/23/facebook-releases-new-cambridge-analytica-documents.html">Zuckerberg lied</a> about Facebook's knowledge of what was going on with Cambridge Analytica's data exfiltration.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Later in the communication, one of the employees called the Cambridge Analytica situation âhi priâ for high priority after The Guardian ran its article claiming the presidential campaign for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was using data on Facebook users largely without their consent.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Keeping this stuff in mind, it's hard not to support Apple's decision to <a href="https://www.macstories.net/stories/sign-in-with-apple-goodbye-account-management/">obfuscate individual's email addresses</a> when they sign up to services using Sign in with Apple. We've proven time and time again that we can't be trusted with personal data and I think we can only expect services like this to become increasingly prevalent as these scandals continue to unfold.</p>
<p>Technology is advancing and opportunities are being created everywhere, it's hard not to look at something like <a href="https://www.cityam.com/artificial-intelligence-marketing-and-phrasee/">Phrasee</a> with optimism, we'll see some radical shifts in marketing when we can focus on the top-level strategy and leave the more tactical elements - like good writing - to tools better suited to the job.</p>
<p>It's easy to only read viewpoints that come from a particular societal point of view, but we can only really learn and improve when we consider how other's see the world, something that <a href="https://qz.com/1144408/bruce-lee-maximized-his-success-by-taking-the-best-of-both-eastern-and-western-philosophies">Bruce Lee</a> understood better than most.</p>
<p>Benek Lisefski writes that <a href="https://modus.medium.com/data-driven-design-is-killing-our-instincts-d448d141653d">"Data-Driven Design Is Killing Our Instincts"</a> and Tanner Christensen writes that <a href="https://tannerchristensen.com/blog/2019/7/22/when-every-product-of-design-is-one-of-opinion">"every product of design is one of opinion"</a>, it seems to me like there's a middle ground to be reached where opinionated experience and data informs the creative process.</p>
<p>On a similar note, <a href="https://leerob.io/blog/style-guides-component-libraries-design-systems/">Lee Robinson</a> has an excellent breakdown of Style Guides and Design Systems. This one's well worth bookmarking.</p>
<p><a href="https://alistapart.com/article/the-career-management-document/">An article on A List Apart</a> recently got me thinking about how I keep track of my career accomplishments and progress, I'm going to start taking weekly notes to keep track of the big stuff.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/aug/21/practice-does-not-always-make-perfect-violinists-10000-hour-rule">A recent article</a> in the Guardians opens up with this great sentence:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>With blatant disregard for the public benefits of motivational idioms, researchers have concluded that practice does not, necessarily, make perfect.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It's easy to get wrapped up in these ideas, but sometimes practice for practice's sake is worth pursuing, even if you won't turn out to be an expert.</p>
<p>Finally, <a href="https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/08/thomas-guide-los-angeles-history-street-map-google-waze-app/591721/">this article on maps</a> is fascinating. It has been proven that <a href="https://qz.com/977356/being-bilingual-makes-you-experience-time-differently/">the way we consume information shapes our perception of the world</a>, maybe we've lost a part of ourselves by relying on technology so much?</p>
<hr />
<p>Big shoutout to the folks at <a href="http://actionrocket.co/">Action Rocket</a> for the meetup this week. It was excellent as always.</p>
Weekly Reading
2019-08-18T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190812-weekly-reading/
<p>This week's been a good week, I was in Provence enjoying some much needed sunshine and rosé and catching up on some reading.</p>
<p>First things first, I <em>finally</em> finished <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7203544-the-inheritance-of-rome">The Inheritance of Rome</a> which I've been reading since early July. I'm not normally this slow at getting through a book, but this was one hell of an information-dense read. It's fascinating to see how the foundations of our modern world were set through this early Middle Ages period. It's a shame Ibn Hawqal's book on Sicilian idiocy has been lost to time, if only for the sheer pettiness of the author.</p>
<p>Also finished was <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2595.Marketing_Warfare">Marketing Warfare</a> by Al Ries which while interesting, I can't help but feel like the military anecdotes are a little trite. There's definitely a lot to unpack in there, and I found it helpful to have more strategic principles detailed in such a clear way. While the author ascribes these as marketing challenges (and maybe they were when this was published in '85) it seems like business has changed and the challenges outlined are more to do with company strategy as opposed to pure marketing strategy.</p>
<p>That leaves me with Henry Kissinger's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14799927-on-china">On China</a> which I'm ~80% through - more on that next week.</p>
<p>In other news I had plenty of time to catch up on some more general reading, more on which below.</p>
<p>Firstly, it seems like some positive news regarding Facebook, in as much as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/08/08/749474600/users-can-sue-facebook-over-facial-recognition-software-court-rules?t=1566139785117">a court has decided that users can sue over their use of facial recognition technology</a>. Unsurprisingly, that's not the only issue they're facing this week with new information coming to light about <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-13/facebook-paid-hundreds-of-contractors-to-transcribe-users-audio">potentially sensitive user audio being listened to by human contractors</a> and Facebook employing some <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/technology/facebook-antitrust.html">defensive warfare</a> (See, I learnt something from that book) following a resurgence in calls for the company to be broken up by US regulators.</p>
<p>It seems like Facebook aren't the only ones in hot water over creepy facial recognition tech, unknown to pretty much everyone, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/42d087fa-bf79-11e9-89e2-41e555e96722">King's Cross station was using the technology too</a> and a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/14/major-breach-found-in-biometrics-system-used-by-banks-uk-police-and-defence-firms">major breach</a> has been found in Biostar 2's systems, with more than a million people compromised. đ</p>
<p>If you hadn't already noticed, the world's falling apart. Mass tourism is <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-08-12/tourism-is-overwhelming-the-world-s-top-destinations">creating issues</a> (to put it lightly) in popular holiday spots and <a href="https://www.citylab.com/environment/2019/08/potable-water-safe-to-drink-cities-global-south-drought-data/595966/">water</a> and <a href="https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/opinion/opinion/why-new-york-city-needs-universal-internet-access.html">internet</a> access in cities continues to be inadequate and only getting worse as demand continues to increase without adequate infrastructural investment. Germany appears to be entertaining some interesting ideas on a potential <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/8/11/20798683/meat-sin-tax-climate-change-animal-welfare-germany">"sin tax" on eating meat</a>, it certainly seems like something worth considering given the ecological impact of animal husbandry.</p>
<p>As if the climate weren't a big deal, Nike seems to think there's a need for a <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/12/business/nike-sneaker-subscription/index.html">subscription service</a> giving kids 4 to 12 pairs of shoes a year. Given the crucial importance of <a href="https://qz.com/quartzy/1670729/the-importance-of-clothing-resale-to-sustainable-fashion-in-2019/">decreasing the environmental impact of our fashion purchases</a>, this seems like a particularly meaningful kick in the teeth from a company that pretends towards left-leaning ideology.</p>
<p>And if all that wasn't bad enough, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-recycling-myth-what-really-happens-your-rubbish">recycling might not be as green as we all like to tell ourselves</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733319301234#!">New research</a> has been published exporing some of the issues in ensuring low-skilled workers benefit from increasing investment in high-tech jobs in Britain. Citylab has an <a href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/technology-employment-multiplier-effect-inequality-research/595291/">excellent breakdown</a> on this issue. Unsurprisingly, it's not all sunshine and rainbows.</p>
<p>Maybe we (as in the British) are <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/13/the-world-is-reaping-the-chaos-the-british-empire-sowed/">to blame</a> for everything that's going wrong?</p>
<p>The Atlantic has a great article on the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/arrogance-anthropocene/595795/">Anthropocene and human arrogance</a>, it's well worth a read.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"The idea of the Anthropocene inflates our own importance by promising eternal geological life to our creations. It is of a thread with our speciesâ peculiar, self-styled exceptionalismâfrom the animal kingdom, from nature, from the systems that govern it, and from time itself. This illusion may, in the long run, get us all killed."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I don't know much about modern Russia, I'm going to have to find some good books to read in the near future to understand why <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/10/thousands-march-in-moscow-disqualification-city-elections">events like this</a> are happening.</p>
<p>If, like me, you have more than a passing interest in tattoos, Artsy have a great article on <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-japanese-prints-inspired-tattoo-frenzy">Utagawa Kuniyoshi's influence</a> on Japanese tattooing.</p>
<p>Conventional thinking tells us that a good UX is one in which the number of clicks the user makes is minimised. But sometimes, <a href="https://uxdesign.cc/why-you-should-forget-about-the-number-of-clicks-b80532475fae">that just ain't right</a>. Maybe the problem is we're all used to <a href="https://essays.uxdesign.cc/case-study-factory/">generic, formulaic thinking</a>.</p>
<p>Quartz published an excellent article on some of the <a href="https://qz.com/1657890/this-is-how-shopping-sites-trick-you-for-money-and-info/">dark patterns</a> we employ on ecommerce and similar sites. I get it, we use dark patterns because they work, but at some point we need to think about the moral and societal repercussions of our work.</p>
<p><strong>In brighter news</strong>, two new experimental <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/health/ebola-outbreak-cure.html">treatments for Ebola</a> are working well enough that they will now be offered to all patients in the DRC.</p>
<p>Jason Bailey's Artnome project has been on my radar for a couple years, this recent article showcases the <a href="https://www.artnome.com/news/2019/7/24/generative-portraiture-of-espen-kluge">artwork of Espen Kluge</a>, a Norwegian artist who uses generative algorithms to create abstract portraits. His work's both visually gorgeous and technically fascinating.</p>
<p>Finally, you should subscribe to Warren Ellis' newsletter, <a href="http://orbitaloperations.com/">Orbital Operations</a>.</p>
Weekly Reading
2019-08-07T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/20190805-weekly-reading/
<p>Some stuff I've been reading this week that's worth bringing back up. In no particular order.</p>
<br />
## [Twitter âfesses up to more adtech leaks](https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/07/twitter-fesses-up-to-more-adtech-leaks/)
<p>I know you weren't asking but no, you still shouldn't trust big tech companies with your personal data. I hope regulatory bodies across Europe take leaf out of the ICO's book and start to impose some hefty fines on companies that keep doing this to us.</p>
<br />
## [Robbie Barrat](https://twitter.com/DrBeef_/status/1158419262463258624)
<p>Robbie Barrat makes cool shit, this is some cool shit he made.</p>
<br />
## [How to stop a gull from stealing your food](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/how-stop-gull-stealing-your-food)
<p>Anyone who's been to Brighton knows that seagulls are arseholes who'll swoop in and steal your bag of chips or doughnuts without a care in the world. Next time you find yourself face to beak with one of these rats of the coast, remember this sage advice:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"The study suggests gulls find the human gaze terrifyingâand that they take human behavior into account when trawling the city for meals. The researchers say changes in human behavior may save us a chip or twoâand help guide more effective gull conservation efforts. So, next time a pesky gull tries to steal your food, donât run away; try having a staring contest with it instead."</p>
</blockquote>
<br />
## [Epic Store Rage Has Gotten Out Of Hand](https://kotaku.com/epic-store-rage-has-gotten-out-of-hand-1837008625)
<p>Gamers. Sigh. The latest scandal in gaming is apparently developers daring to sell the game they've made through the EPIC game store instead of whatever other digital storefront. This is apparently <em>such</em> an affront that exceedingly special members of the gaming community have decided it's worth sending death and rape threats to developers. If you want to understand the rise of the alt-right and some of the tactics they use, looking at events like this and Gamergate will help make things clear.</p>
<br />
## [Slipknot on Darkness, Anger, Addiction Behind âIowaâ: âWe Almost All Diedâ](https://www.revolvermag.com/music/slipknot-darkness-anger-addiction-behind-iowa-we-almost-all-died)
<p>The summer it was released, I spent weeks listening to IOWA by Slipknot on repeat while playing the Warhammer MUD, Wolfenburg. Anytime I hear it now, I get flashbacks to sitting at home staring at screens full of descriptive text, slowly typing my way to victory. This article was shared on the EmailGeeks slack by Waz and I immediately had to start listening to the album again, and yep, the flashbacks to that time were still in full effect.</p>
<p>It wasn't a favourite of mine at the time by any means, but it's grown a lot on me and the stories the Slipknot crew tell about that time period are fascinating.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"CRAHAN Best time for me was when Sid was a little out of control, wouldn't get his shit down. He's like, "I gotta go. My grandfather's dying. I gotta get there. Shit's going on." Grandpa dies. Didn't get there. Sid shows up. But we see he's hurting. He gets in [the recording booth]. They start the song. He starts singing. Next thing you know the song's done, he has a breakdown and that's "(515)" [the intro of Iowa]. That's all Sid. Just gone. I come in the next day, Ross is weeping. Puts his arms around me. "I've been waiting for you, Clown. You're one of the few people that's gonna understand this. This is my favorite part of the record. It's the realest part of the record." It was Sid having a breakdown from all the pain in this thing called Slipknot."</p>
</blockquote>
<br />
## [DeepMindâs Latest A.I. Health Breakthrough Has Some Problems](https://onezero.medium.com/deepminds-latest-a-i-health-breakthrough-has-some-problems-5cd14e2c77ef)
<p>Wouldn't you know, there are some deep flaws with Deepmind's health research. Unsurprisingly, feeding an algorithm gender biased data results in a gender biased model. Quelle surprise !</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"The Google machine learning company trumpeted its success in predicting a deadly kidney condition, but its results raise questions around data rights and patient diversity"</p>
</blockquote>
<br />
## [Free Trials and Freemium Models: Does One Work Better Than the Other?](https://www.profitwell.com/blog/freemium-vs-free-trial)
<p>The folks at Profitwell always turn out excellent research, this is the latest example of that. If you're selling a SAAS product and want to learn something, read this. If you're trying to understand how to do content marketing <em>right</em>, read this.</p>
<br />
## [Nationalism is thriving using the very mechanism it denounces](https://qz.com/1680926/what-makes-nationalism-so-successful/)
<p>Another day, another hate crime perpetrated by an Angry White Man. If you want to begin to understand what drives nationalism and fascism around the world, this article is well worth your time.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"In July, the head of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, Ali Erbas, declared that same-sex relationships constituted âheresy.â This is the same institution that in 2018 claimed on their website that girls as young as nine years old were spiritually ready to get married. One out of every three marriages in the country today involves underage girls, according to womenâs rights groups. Cases of gender-based violence in Turkey escalated by 1,400% from 2002 to 2009.</p>
<p>I site Turkey because it gives us a salient example of how populist nationalismâand its next-in-line, populist authoritarianismânot only generates nativism and a systematic distrust of foreigners, but exacerbates sexism, misogyny and homophobia."</p>
</blockquote>
<br />
## [If youâve got a big career goal, you need to start keeping a work diary](https://qz.com/work/1675000/how-to-achieve-a-big-career-goal-start-by-keeping-a-work-diary/)
<p>I hate writing, I don't feel good at it and it feels like, at any moment, someone will realise I'm as dumb as I sometimes feel I am. This article was a good kick in the arse for me to just get on with it and worry about it later.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Personal growth is perhaps the most important outcome of keeping a work diary, according to Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile and psychologist Steven Kramer, co-authors of the book The Progress Principle. As they explain in an article for the Harvard Business Review, they asked more than 200 knowledge workers to write in a diary for no more than 10 minutes a day while working on a complex project. While the participants said the exercise helped them stay focused and organized, they were especially struck by the psychological revelations that occurred to them as they wrote."</p>
</blockquote>
<br />
## [How the Trump Campaign Used Facebook Ads to Amplify His âInvasionâ Claim](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/us/politics/trump-campaign-facebook-ads-invasion.html)
<p>If you haven't been paying attention, America's got a white supremacy problem. The NYT's got the lowdown on how Trump's inflammatory language has been used across more than 2,000 ads on Facebook and why that's a problem.</p>
<br />
## [What all the stuff in email headers meansâand how to sniff out spoofing](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/08/ars-forensic-files-how-to-parse-through-e-mail-headers-and-spot-obfuscation/)
<p>Despite working in email for the last 8 years, I still struggle to read email headers. This article is probably the best thing I've read on the subject, hugely informative if you want to help others understand just why email is <em>hard</em>.</p>
<br />
## [The Real Dark Web](https://www.sonniesedge.net/posts/real-dark-web/)
When you're active in online communities, particularly technical ones, it's easy to get wrapped up in the idea that everyone's doing the latest thing, this is as true in web design as it is in email marketing.
<blockquote>
<p>"They are the 99% of the web universe that is quietly getting on, not blogging about their technology stack, not publishing amazing new tooling. Simply building things.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>I call them the 1% with purpose, in a deliberate evocation of the privileged 1% who run our planet (because I love to jump analogy mid post and to distort numbers). To be on a cutting edge team is a privilege. It means having resources and money and a lack of accountability that most web developers simply don't have."</p>
</blockquote>
<p><br /><br /></p>
<h3>If you've got time for more:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/08/uber-lyft-traffic-congestion-ride-hailing-cities-drivers-vmt/595393/">How Much Traffic Do Uber and Lyft Cause?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.artsy.net/news/artsy-editorial-sothebys-shareholder-brought-new-lawsuit-patrick-drahis-37-billion-acquisition-bid">A Sothebyâs shareholder brought a new lawsuit to stop Patrick Drahiâs $3.7-billion acquisition bid.</a></li>
<li><a href="https://qz.com/work/1682579/jpmorgan-chase-chooses-ai-copywriter-persado-to-write-ads">JPMorgan Chase has an AI copywriter that writes better ads than humans can</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49262255">The ancient Egyptian yeasts being used to bake modern bread</a></li>
<li><a href="https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/Messerly20190808">Reflections on the (Real Possibility) of the End of the World</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/08/empress-trees-are-the-best-tree-to-solve-global-carbon-dioxide-problem.html">Empress Trees Are The Best Tree to Solve Global Carbon Dioxide Problem</a></li>
</ul>
Angry White Men
2019-08-06T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/angry-white-men/
<p>On May 1st, 1994, Ayrton Senna crashed and died during the San Marino Grand Prix. I recall watching the race with my dad in our sitting room in France, he was home from the hospital after a heavy bout of chemo and the loss of one of his heroes bought him to tears. A few months later, in December, he died too.</p>
<p>Close to 25 years later, a few weeks ago, his father passed away. In many ways, he was the father I never really had the luxury of having, pushing me into various sports, teaching me to read a clock, to speak to strangers and so much more.</p>
<p>Itâs hard to see the rise of hateful father figures in society like Jordan Peterson. Cheerily leading vulnerable young white men towards paths of intolerance and hatred for others in the name of a quick buck. When simple advice like âclean your roomâ gets passed alongside race baiting <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/02/the-unwelcome-revival-of-race-science">âRace IQâ</a> lies and society turns inwards and backwards, sparking intolerance and attacks towards women, the LGBTQ+ community and more.</p>
<p><em>What are we to do with all the angry young white men?</em></p>
<p>Last night I saw Henry Rollins speak for the first time, he seemed possessed of a wild sense of optimism. Iâm going to try some of that too.</p>
Dear Email Industry, We've Got a GDPR Problem
2019-06-10T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/gdpr-email-tracking/
<p><strong>The email industry's got a GDPR problem.</strong></p>
<p>Some of you reading this might have seen me talk about this problem in the very excellent <a href="https://email.geeks.chat/">Email Geeks Community</a>, but if you're new, let me break it down for you.</p>
<p>Last year, the GDPR came into effect, which put in place some rigorous laws around data processing and how personally identifiable information (PII) has to be handled. This stressed out a lot of email marketers, who quite rightly realised that the new regulations would have a significant effect on their ability to acquire and market to customers via their email address (which counts as PII).</p>
<p>Now if you're reading this, you're probably familiar with how that's gone, so I won't bore you with the details.</p>
<br />
## So What's the Problem?
<p>The overwhelming majority of commercial email sent today contains tracking pixels and tracking links, these are used to uniquely identify individuals so that opens and clicks can be correctly attributed to them. This isn't strictly a problem, the GDPR does not ban processing of personal data for tracking purposes, however email tracking frequently fails to meet a number of criteria necessary to be legal under the GDPR.</p>
<p><strong>We're not collection consent to track user behaviour</strong> - That means we're probably relying on good old Legitimate Interest and that's frought with a number of risks.</p>
<p>Firstly, most brands aren't disclosing in their privacy policies or at moment of signup that they're tracking user behaviour in marketing emails. That's a problem. <a href="https://gdpr-info.eu/art-5-gdpr/">Article 5</a> clearly states that to be legally compliant, personal data should be processed in the following manner:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject (âlawfulness, fairness and transparencyâ);</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is further expanded upon in <a href="https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-39/">Recital 39</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It should be transparent to natural persons that personal data concerning them are collected, used, consulted or otherwise processed and to what extent the personal data are or will be processed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Failure to adequately disclose email tracking within your brand's privacy policy is a clear breach of the regulation.</p>
<p>Secondly, when Legitimate Interest is used as the legal basis for processing of personal data, the data subject has the <a href="https://gdpr-info.eu/art-21-gdpr/">Right to Object</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The data subject shall have the right to object, on grounds relating to his or her particular situation, at any time to processing of personal data concerning him or her which is based on point (e) or (f) of Article 6(1), including profiling based on those provisions.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This means that when processing data under a Legitimate Interest basis, the data subject has the right to object to your tracking, this brings us round to our second problem.</p>
<br />
## Email Marketing Platforms Are Not GDPR Compliant†
<p>Take a look at your ESP, does it allow you to, on a per individual basis, opt-out of email tracking?</p>
<p>If the answer to that is no, and in most cases the answer will be no, you're in breach of the GDPR as soon as a customer objects to your data processing. That is assuming you disclose the tracking in your privacy policy, if you don't you're already in breach.</p>
<p>This becomes even more of a legal quagmire as soon as we start looking at tracking in emails sent on a legal basis other than Consent or Legitimate Interest.</p>
<p>So what can you do about it?</p>
<p><strong>Complain to your ESP!</strong> Complain frequently and loudly. Make them do something about it. Ultimately the GDPR is here to stay, and ESP's must put in the work to allow marketers to comply with the law.</p>
<br />
## Where Does That Leave Email Marketing?
<p>Email marketing isn't going anywhere, email remains one of the most valuable channels for reaching your customers and losing the ability to track behavioural data isn't going to change that fundamental fact. What is going to change is our ability to act upon vast swathes of personal data.</p>
<p>You know what?</p>
<p>That's not a problem, personal data is not a crucial part of gauging the success of a campaign and anonymised data is more than good enough for us to achieve our objectives.</p>
<p>I'll leave you with a parting note; as marketers, we've become entirely too comfortable handling vast swathes of personal data, it's time we get used to a world where that option isn't always going to be available to us.</p>
<hr />
<p>Usual caveats apply. I am not a lawyer.</p>
<p>â <em>Yes, I know a small minority are, but they're a small minority. This might be one of the very few instances in which I'd recommend SFMC</em></p>
Tough Mudder
2019-05-06T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/tough-mudder/
<p>Last Saturday I attended the London West Tough Mudder event with a great group of colleagues from Paymentsense, and, well, it was fucking freezing đ„¶.</p>
<p>Sadly, my dodgy hip flexor played up so I had to pull out around mile 6. Felt like a serious bummer but I didn't want to push it so far I'd be struggling to walk for the next month. You can see how I did over on the <a href="https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/3617216339">Garmin activity page</a>.</p>
<p>I think I'll be back next year, just need to sort this hip out.</p>
Hello World
2019-05-06T00:00:00Z
https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/hello-world/
<p>So, it's been a <strong>long</strong> time since I've bothered to have a blog or personal site of any sort - and while I've certainly dabbled in a bunch of web related projects over the years (mostly wikis and video game community related stuff), I've not really <em>done</em> the web properly in a long time.</p>
<p>I guess this represents a new start of sorts. I'm currently dabbling in Python in an effort to learn some new skills, so this site is being generated through <a href="https://blog.getpelican.com/" title="Pelican">Pelican</a>, a Python based static site generator. I'm also experimenting with Github, something that seems trivial to most developers but I never got around to learning for no good reason at all. Site content is being hosted in an Azure blob, which is easy peasy through VS Code.</p>
<p>Ultimately I'd like become more rounded as a marketer by being able to actually get stuck in with some of the more technical projects that I like being involved in. I guess I'll be posting some of my efforts about that here, along with whatever else takes my fancy.</p>
<p>Thanks for dropping in!</p>