As a kid growing up it didn’t matter what I did but my father never quite approved.

As a kid growing up it didn’t matter what I did but my father never quite approved. He never quite thought I was good enough or that anything I ever did was quite good enough. It’s not that he ever really thought about me in those terms . . . hope it was just the way he was, and likely it was, because his father treated him much the same way.

He is still alive and will likely read this . . . actually think I better send it to him before he reads it for the first time here. He is not that way now and I have sort of come to peace with growing up that way, except that in the deepest darkest recesses of my soul, not being good enough still haunts me.

I need to pause for a moment and say that I am going someplace with this story. So please don’t feel sorry for me or a need to tell me I am good enough.

Get On With It Steve . . . 

Since the day I started this blog, just shy of 4 years ago I have never felt it was good enough, and it turns out that for the most part, that is a good thing. It pushes me to get better, to try new things and then try some more stuff. Some examples of stuff I tried:

  • I am on my 5th web design.
  • I tried running a FREE . . . get that free job board and it failed, not because it didn’t get eyes on it, but no one posted jobs.
  • I tried running a separate discussion board where people could post questions and comments. The idea being that there would be robust discussions between senior living professionals. No one posted, no one cared.
  • Hardly a month goes by that I don’t get one or two emails from readers telling me how wrong I am and what a disappointment I have become . . . well it goes more like . . . I can’t believe you would write that. You are a terrible person.

A few weeks ago I got stuff like that on three different articles in a single week. No, I am not telling which week or which articles.

Reader Guinea Pigs

Perhaps the hardest part of all this is that you the reader become my test subjects for what works and what doesn’t. My experiments are not done in a vacuum. I read tons and tons of stuff from lots of industries on how to publish quality content and how to improve the usability of the website and make the emails user friendly. Nonetheless, I never quite know how things are going to work out until I try them.

The other factor that comes to play in this is that I have a number of great partners: Sage Age Strategies, OnShift, Caring.com, Vigil Health Solutions, It’s Never 2 Late, DEI Central, iTacit, ServiceTrac, Capital One Bank, Strategic Dining Service, LivWell Health, Prorize, Circa 46, RealPage, Carevium and Aegis Therapy who make this all financially possible. As we write about the things they are doing to help senior living providers do a better job it is our goal to make every single article interesting so that you learn something or think about something differently even if you never purchase their products or services.

My Current Challenges

Here is the stuff I am currently trying to figure out:

  1. I would like to have more feedback from you about how we are doing, how well the articles are hitting your needs, inspiring you or causing you to think. It’s a tough challenge every time you are bombarded with stuff to read, watch and listen to. It is tough to find time to engage. 
  2. Most days we are publishing two articles and I am finding whichever one is first up on the email gets great engagement and the other one not some much so. It is frustrating because sometimes, in my view, the second article is the more interesting.
  3. I would like to figure out a way to get readers to share articles more on social media, to forward emails to friends and colleagues in the business inside and outside their organization. I am more at loss to figure this out, than any other challenge.
  4. There is so much more I know I don’t know. I just don’t know what that stuff is. 

What Are The Next Experiments?

  1. The first one is already in place. You will occasionally see a little survey pop up sometimes across the website and sometimes related to a specific article. Generally they will contain one or two questions and will not ask you for any personal data. 

    It is my way of getting to know you better . . . and to sometimes help partners gather a little bit of info that can help them serve customers better.

  2. The same platform does allow me to just post messages and there might come a time where there would for identifying information. Like the Pop-up on this article.
  3. At some point, I will be playing with the email format. In particular I will likely try shifting from links to individual articles and send you to the front page where above the fold you will see the most recent articles in the hope that you will be enticed to read the second article of the day . . . or even more.

Finally, maybe you have an idea for an experiment you think I should try . . . no promises I will . . . but I would love to hear about it.

Steve