And you are here why?

Ever been a Systems Administrator? I have (first job I ever had!), and I have to tell ya, it’s a pretty thankless gig. I mean yes, there is the satisfaction of a job well done, the joy of knowing that everything is up and working to spec, etc., but, behind all of this, you are left with the knowledge that  Nobody Cares Till It Breaks  😔. Mind you, it’s not that they don’t care at all. It’s more like, from their perspective, “It’s Working” is normalcy, steady-state, the way things should be. You don’t get into a Toyota Camry, and say to yourself “ Hmm, I wonder whether the engine-block will fall out of the car on the way to work ”. Engine-blocks remaining in the car is the default state of existence, and if one  does  happen to fall out of the car, then hey, it’s definitely Bizarro-City! And that, my friends, is what SysAdmins — and software engineers in general — deal with all the time. As far as users are concerned, systems are Toyota Camrys, and are supposed...

If you’re doing   any   marketing, you’re probably using some form of Marketing Automation tool, something like   Constant Contact ,   Eloqua ,   Marketo , and so forth. These tools aren’t just cool, they’re   necessary . I mean, how else are you going to keep track of your user interactions and interpret the firehose of data that you have? All this, mind you, on top of the constant arms race that you’re in when it comes to filling your marketing funnel, maintaining brand awareness, etc! The tricky bit here is that there are just an   insane   number of factors involved. Things like changes to the business climate, fiscal year variations, customer behavior around holidays, user dissembling, etc. these are all factors that can   theoretically   be tracked and maintained. That said • The rules go stale really really fast (probably faster than you can code them) • The ground-truth around the rules can change in a blink (“ new tariff...

This has been annoying me for   years  now. I mean, seriously, WTF is " T25 "? via SMBC

via WuMo

The next person to mention “Personal Branding” to me stands an even chance of watching me batter my head against a wall till I pass out. Seriously. Do you know of any brands that are "Sincere"? Better yet, think of the word "branding" - whats the first thing that comes to mind?  Odds are it had something to do with Snake Oil, Shills , and/or Insincerity. In fact, the whole point of most branding exercises tends to be about getting you to do something that you don't really want/need/must do - think "paying for bottled water", or "eating at MickeyD's", or something equally horrific. So why, why  should your exercise in " Personal Branding " result in anything other than mockery, sarcasm, or my battering my head against the nearest wall till I pass out?

via @gapingvoid

To buy useless crap because Its Shiny! and It has Formula T25 in it! and Kim Kardashian uses it! Then again, once you actually realize this, you start seeing the messages everywhere, driving you to either drink, suicide, or a cynical hatred of mankind... Jonathan Rosenberg does this proper...

Spotted at the "Breakfast Bar" at a Marriott in San Jose. Words fail me. Seriously, this needs a ™ ?