Articles

Articles on AI, coaching, product strategy, and building a business that matters.

1639 posts

This site now runs on the Blocksy theme

WordPressJan 22, 2021

The Blocksy theme is one of four really fast themes The other day I told you about several themes I was checking out as I start to move from a pagebuilder-based site to Gutenberg. That list, if you recall, included the following four themes that are all really clean and load really quickly (alpha order):...

WordPress

Are you watching Elasticsearch and the licensing dynamics at play?

InsightsJan 21, 2021

There's a ton that I don't know. Let's start with that. There's a software solution out there that isn't just about search. It's called Elasticsearch by a company called Elastic. And they recently announced a change to their licensing. It's a powerful piece of software that is used in a lot of places. And it's...

Insights

My Favorite Appointment Scheduling Software

WordPressJan 20, 2021

Does your appointment scheduling software end up rewarding bad behavior? I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but it happens on a weekly basis to me. And it's so incredibly annoying. Yes, I'm about to rant about appointment scheduling software. It's a silly thing. But it's not the software that bothers me....

WordPress

Software Licensing for WordPress Plugins

WordPressJan 19, 2021

Need license keys for your WordPress plugin or theme? If you've ever wanted to monetize the code you've written, especially (but not uniquely) in the WordPress ecosystem, you've likely thought about how you'd go about protecting it. After all, giving away a version of your code may make sense from a marketing perspective, but eventually...

WordPress

Last Week in WooCommerce: WooCommerce Reviews

eCommerceJan 18, 2021

WooCommerce Reviews are Powerful Every week I share with you what's been going on in WooCommerce in the last week. This past week the latest version (4.9) was released. They made some things faster (including the API), and they worked on the dashboard. All good things. But my favorite is whenever they work on WooCommerce...

eCommerce

Recurring Revenue & Extending Your Team

Agency AdviceJan 17, 2021

Recurring Revenue is the Name of the Game If you're running a digital agency, creating recurring revenue is critical. But to do that, you likely have to extend your team. And just the other day, I told you that more resources aren't always the answer. But today I want to suggest an approach that lowers,...

Agency Advice

Endangering Ecosystem Flexibility

WordPressJan 16, 2021

What made WordPress incredible (and helped it grow) If you were around in the old days, like 2005, there were a lot of different blogging platforms. You could find them using a variety of different programming languages (in case you wanted to make modifications), but each one came with some core features that made it...

WordPressInsights

More Resources Won't Help

Product WorkJan 15, 2021

I remember reading a story, when I was first managing people, about Bill Gates and his approach to resources at Microsoft. According to the story, he regularly rejected requests to add resources to the development teams. When I first heard it, I was managing a team of three software developers. I thought his rejection was...

Product Work

When the reciprocity principle goes wrong

Agency AdviceJan 14, 2021

What is the reciprocity principle? If you've never heard of the reciprocity principle, you've surely experienced it. If I say to you, \"thank you,\" what are you going to say back? If I pay you a compliment, like, \"I love your outfit,\" you'll likely figure out some way to return a compliment. In defining reciprocity,...

Agency AdviceProduct Work

Creating Free Content & Dealing with Criticism

InsightsJan 13, 2021

Creating Free Content Comes with Criticism You likely have had the experience where you overhear people talking and you feel like you just have to jump into the conversation? That happened to me today. Normally, if it was in person, it would have been rude. But it was on Twitter, so responding about free content...

Insights

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