work – Page 5 – Rob Mansfield: writing, telling stories and content strategy

User testing can be an emotional experience

Anyone who’s spent any time working in digital will tell you the benefit of regular testing of your offering with real people.

They hopefully validate a number of theories, as well as piercing huge holes through long-held assumptions and occasionally throwing you curveballs you would never have foreseen under any circumstances.

But – for me – the most enduring part of user testing is to hear the personal stories of people who already do or are likely to use your product/site.

Working for a charity, you sometimes test with those who fit completely with your target user, but who may never have heard of you.

It’s at that point – occasionally – when your job seems completely worthwhile. Continue reading “User testing can be an emotional experience”

Stop thinking ‘failure’ is a bad thing

James Dyson Most of us are brought up being encouraged to get things right. Although ‘fail fast, fail hard’ has become a Silicon Valley motto, it’s anathema to most of us.

And yet doing things wrong is great, because you learn from your mistakes (and no, that’s not meant to be a cliche).

Take James Dyson, King of Making Failure Pay. He famously made 5,126 versions of his Dual Cyclone vacuum cleaner before he reached the magic version that has turned him into a very wealthy and successful man. Continue reading “Stop thinking ‘failure’ is a bad thing”

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: why one-on-one meetings are so important

I’ve just finished Ben Horowitz’s brilliant book The Hard Thing About Hard Things – in which he shares his own widsom gleaned from being CEO of a start-up (Opsware) that was inches away from liquidation and ultimately went on to become very successful.

There’s no grandstanding in the book – Horowitz openly admits when he got things wrong, how he’d change things if he did them again and lifts the lid on some of the stuff most employees never give a second thought to when they do their regular hours.

Make sure you use those 1-2-1s effectively

Horowitz is particularly interesting on company culture, how important it is and why it’s way more than allowing people to play table tennis and use scooters to get around the office.

He talks very passionately about the regular catch-ups managers have with direct reports and why they’re so important for employees.

The key to a good one-on-one meeting is the understanding that it is the employee’s meeting rather than the manager’s meeting… During the meeting, since it’s the employee’s meeting, the manager should do 10 percent of the talking and 90 percent of the listening. Note that this is the opposite of most one-on-ones.

Many managers treat catch-ups as a way of imparting information that they could easily deliver via email, or a casual conversation at a desk. Continue reading “The Hard Thing About Hard Things: why one-on-one meetings are so important”