Don’t really know why I’m writing this - most of the people who read this site know how this works already.

I’m not sure if this applies to a lot of my readers (who I’ve probably lost the majority of in the last few months, due to non-blogging), so go read Greg’s article…

Lijit has a KILLER magic funnel. The way they drive you in the service is seamless and simple.

I recall pitching Ouriel at last year’s NextWeb Conference in Amsterdam, back when Lijit was Outfoxed. Even though he seemed to be impressed, he didn’t feature it on Techcrunch - well, seems like the best pitch is still a KILLER product.

Way to go, folks!

The only problem is that I’m not a spammer. (In fact I wish I would engage much more with other bloggers by leaving comments on their thoughtful posts.)

I figured out that Askimet categorizes my comments as spam when I tried to post a comment on Andreas blog and it didn’t show up. So I chatted him up on Skype, since I suspected it to be a problem of his new comment system.
But what we learned was that my comment in fact got labeled as spam by Askimet. Ouch.

My first suspicion is that it might have to do something with a few test comments I made on my own blog back when I had to fix some wordpress issues with my comment system. These test comments basically just said “test test” and I entered about 5-10 in total, at most. Maybe this was enough for Askimet to put my IP on their blacklist? Kudos, that’s a pretty eager learning algorithm you got there, yet this time it definetely got a false positive.

The worst case scenario - and I don’t even want to think about it - is that I got pwned and someone is now using my IP to promote ear enlargement or other crap. Tho I don’t even know if that’d be possible.

I’ve contacted the Askimet support with this problem and hope that they’ll get back to me soon.
Please.

If anyone else would have a suggestion on how to handle this, please leave a comment or chat me up, the latter being probably the safer way to reach me

There seems to be some growing consensus on multitasking being bad for productivity. The basic argument against multitasking goes like this (via Theory of Constraints Blog):

“Multi-tasking is the act of stopping a task before it is completed and shifting to something else; in software development the term “thrashing” is often used to describe this practice. When a task is stopped and started there is the immediate effect of a loss of efficiency. Each time a person has to re-start a task, time is required to become re-familiarized with the work and get re-set in where he was in the process. It is very much like the physical set-ups done on a machine in production. Each time you tear down a machine to do another task, you have to set it up to run the part again.” (Emphasis added)

Now I do believe that this problem applies to a lot of different tasks. However, there are important exceptions, where multitasking in fact is going to boost productivity. Which are they?

Firstly, let’s conceptualize tasks as problems. So working on a task means to solve a specific problem.
There are essentially two types of problems (as distinguished by Cognitive Psychologists):
1.)Well-structured problems and 2.) Ill-structured problems.
Well-structured problems are characterized by clear solution paths: Say you want to setup Wordpress on a server. You’re familiar with the necessary steps involved in the process + there is a clear order in which these steps have to be taken.
Ill-structured problems lack this clear solution path - examples would be writing an essay or coming up with a good claim for an ad campaign: there is clearly not one way to tackle these tacks, the problem “space” is much less defined as it is with well-structured problems.

My point here is that it is those ill-structured problems where multitasking can be put to good use, while the opposite applies for most, if not all, well-structured problems (or tasks, for that matter).

Here is why: While solving a well-structured problem, you work your way through the problem space in a linear fashion, meaning you have to stay focussed on your progress and the upcoming steps. Re-switching to this task (after you’ve switched to another in between) will almost always cost time to figure out exactly at which step you’ve been before leaving the task, ultimately slowing down your performance on all tasks.

This is different for ill-structured problems, where the solution often requires something psychologists call “insight” - a sudden idea of how to tackle the task. In many cases, this “insight” will transform a hard problem into a relatively easy one. Yet the hardest part is to have this insight and many fail at this, simply because they try to solve these problems just like they solve the well-defined ones, i.e. in a linear fashion.
Yet the best way to insight is to view a problem from as many different perspectives as possible. You need to be able to readjust your perception of it until the solution path “finds you”, not necessarily the other way around.
In these cases it often is actually good to work on something else in between, e.g. finish (!) one of your well-defined tasks, and then to get back to the ill-structured problem.
The change of perspective, which is a bad thing to have for any well-defined task, is exactly what you need when solving problems where the solution requires a certain amount of creativity.

So my suggestion is simple:

When it comes to well-structured tasks - do them one by another.
If you’re stuck working on ill-structured tasks, do not “try harder”, but interrupt them with other things. Doing something else and getting back to them later just might be the best way to solve them.

Here is a very simple example of a ill-structured problem (from “Cognitive Psychology” by Robert Sternberg):

A woman who lived in a small town married twenty different men in that same town. All of them are still living, and she never divorced any of them. Yet she broke no laws. How could she do this?

If you don’t find a solution immediately, go answer some of these emails and check back again afterwards

: multitasking, productivity, psychology, problem solving

Looking at how Lijit’s evangelists Tara and Barney have been succesfully working for the past few months I’d add
6. Approach every blogger *personally*, identify their main topics and see how your product could suit their particular needs.
7. This is only step #1, ultimately you want to engage in a conversation. This is where evangelism eventually has to become CRM. E.g. proactively talk to your existing users, offer help, ask for their feedback.

Even though I no longer work for Lijit, I still follow the blogbuzz on them regularly and I’m impressed with all the positive feedback Tara and the others are getting. They really managed to find the right tone when talking to bloggers, as can exemplified by this, this or this, to link a few. I guess the secret lies within their natural no bullshit/marketing attitude when sending those mails. Which is pretty much in line with Robert’s thoughts.

Congrats Tara and Barney!

: blogmarketing, evangelism, crm

I didn’t have a specific video in mind when I was trying to figure out how to embed Youtube videos, but since it’s working now, enjoy “The Truth”: