Why I Experiment Every Day via @dudonwai
Posted on July 16, 2016 at 9:00 PM
Every day, I try to find at least three experiments I can do. Will a cold shower in the morning wake me up more than a warm one? Do I eat more in a day if I have a big breakfast or a small one? Do I focus at work better with music or without?
I’ve experimented with many things to do with my diet, fitness, productivity and relationships. I learned that I wake up best with just two alarms spaced 10 minutes apart; no need for ten alarms or placing my alarm clock at the other end of the room. I learned that when exercising, I run better to podcasts and lift better to house or trance music. I learned that when I talk to people I think faster than I speak, and can save a lot of time and confusion if I pause and ask, “Do you know what I mean?”.
Each experiment has allowed me to play with my comfort zone. Experiments help me learn more about the world, about myself, and about whatever it is I am specifically experimenting about. I grow personally because I experiment. Only through experimenting can we start to embrace parts of the world we don’t know about.
How I Experiment
We learned the Scientific Method in school, but I have a simpler approach to experimenting, called A/B testing. It requires you to be aware of a problem, make assumptions and test them. It’s not a new concept, and we all already do it at some capacity, but it’s certainly an under-utilized means of improving your life.
The idea of A/B testing is to take a look at a current situation (A), and see what the current outcomes are. Then you change one input to the situation (B), and observe how it affects your outcome.
For example, I’m sure everyone has optimized their commute to work. When I leave for work in the morning at 8 a.m. (A), I get to work at 9 a.m., but I noticed if I leave for work at 7 a.m. (B), I get to work at 7:30 a.m. The outcome of the experiment was that if I leave for work an hour earlier, I spend 30 minutes less on my commute to work. And as a result, I can leave work earlier in the afternoon (probably skip rush hour again), and have more time for myself at the end of the day.
And that’s all you have to do. For any aspect of your life, take a look at what you’re doing right now and think of a way you can improve it. Gather some data on what your current situation is like, then try something different and reflect on what you learned. If it turns out your experiment actually improved things, change your behaviour accordingly.
Start with a small part of your life, and go from there. Learning how to experiment with your life is a muscle. You have to practice it every day to get better.
At GreyAdv, we’re all about experimentation, too. As it turns out, you can assume and speculate all you want, but you’ll never understand your customer without data. Data comes from customer feedback, in the form of talking with them directly, or indirectly from analyzing their interaction with our business or products (website traffic, behaviour on social media, purchasing decisions etc).
So what has data shown us so far at GreyAdv?
1. First Impressions Matter
Anyone I’ve talked to in person about GreyAdv has had trouble pronouncing the name. “Grey-Addive? Or is the ‘v’ silent, like Grey-Ad?” Well I’ll tell you, it’s actually supposed to be Grey-A-D-V. Conversations like these mean it’s not clear to our customers and the public who we are, and what we do.
Then, the next question is always, “What does A-D-V stand for?”. That adds even more to the lack of clarity of what we do — although that was actually intentional. You can’t think of any negative words starting with “Adv-”, and we wanted to associate with many ideas like advertising, advantage, advice. But rather than being descriptive, the open-endedness made our brand ambiguous at first. But if you were to dig deeper, you’d find we’re a passionate team trying help people and small business make the biggest use of technology today.
That said, once we’ve figured out more about what people like about what GreyAdv does, we’ll probably come up with a new name and rebrand. Got ideas? Email us or let us know anywhere on social media!
2. People Want to Build Websites Themselves
We’ve worked with many small businesses in the last year, and we came across 2 types of customers. Some customers wanted us to build a website for them, and then teach them how to maintain it themselves. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s not that easy, but sometimes it is when all you need to update is the web content. Other customers had an idea for a business, or were just starting out, and needed a website to build a brand and test out the market.
We began to realize that both types of customers just wanted to learn how to build websites themselves, but they didn’t have the skills for it. Sure, the Internet is full of books, how-to’s, videos and courses on building a website, but there’s so much of it that it can be overwhelming too.
And we’re finding it’s not just business owners any more. Nearly anyone might want to build a website at some point in their life. They may have thoughts they want to share with the world on their very own blog, or maybe they want to start an e-commerce store to sell their custom t-shirts with shoelace artwork. Maybe there’s a big event coming up, like a wedding, and they want their attendees to find out everything they need to know on a website.
Ultimately, we’re finding that more and more people want to become digitally literate, to learn more about technology and how to make the most of it.
Today’s Experiment
GreyAdv has always been about making technology more accessible and relevant for people. We started out building websites for small business, but then the data told us that businesses needed help with online branding on social media and advertising, so we provided those services too.
“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Now, the data is showing a much bigger need out there. You know the saying, “Give a man a fish…”? Well, that’s the idea behind GreyAdv’s next experiment: To teach people skills in technology, so they can use them for the rest of their lives. People want to learn technology themselves, but often they just don’t have the resources or proper coaching to start. For that reason, we’re launching our very first workshop in Calgary this summer on MVPs (minimum viable products). The class is specially designed for people who want to turn an idea into a tangible website or product, and conduct some experiments to see if it’s worth continuing.