Workers across the world have picked up their smartphones to vent about the 9-to-5 on TikTok, the social media app with a billion monthly users.The app, in which users dive down an infinite scroll of short videos filmed by other users, attracts thousands of workers complaining about and making fun of work and their day jobs, mostly in the form of short comedy sketches filmed on their phones, often set to music and sometimes peppered with explicit language. The videos are filed under the popular hashtag of #worktok (as well as #careertok and simply #work) and are watched by millions.

Venting About Work On TikTok

The experiences and nuances of corporate life and working in an office are relatable and almost universal.Whether it's the annoyance of turning cameras on for Zoom calls or the whiplash of sudden check-ins with your boss, no work-related quirk is safe from ridicule.Many users on #worktok – a tag that has more than a half-billion views – found themselves ending up on TikTok out of lockdown malaise, when their companies implemented remote-work policies more than two years ago.#worktok shows how so many of us go through the same experiences, regardless of what our jobs are.

The Universal Appeal Of #Worktok

The rise of #worktok is part of a broader referendum on the current state of work.These videos provide light-hearted viral distractions that let people bond over what they dislike about work – but they also reflect how, as the pandemic has dragged on, many of the problematic elements of work have come under increased scrutiny.There is a realisation among many knowledge workers that they don't necessarily need to be in the office every single day. These TikTok videos are emblematic of the recent push for more worker flexibility, better work-life balance and greater mental health awareness.

Uncovering A Broader Issue

Workers are fed up with corporate culture. A growing number are poking fun and pushing for change in social media videos, to the tune of billions of views.

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

mindfulness

Mindfulness

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

#worktok: The surge of venting about the worst of work

The misinformation and disinformation propagated by social media create a chain reaction of harm, acting as a force multiplier for exacerbating our worst problems as a society.Focusing on content alone distracts from the core problem of social media.Social media reduces belief in science and medicine, weakens trust in longstanding institutions, drives acceptance of ridiculous conspiracy theories, and damages faith in democracy. But you will find the same hate, the same disinformation throughout history.O<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/08/partisans-in-the-u-s-increasingly-divided-on-whether-offensive-content-online-is-taken-seriously-enough/">ffensive and divisive content</a> has always existed.

Selective Content To Create A Distortion Field

Software systems can amplify human abilities and <a href="https://bigthink.com/the-future/swarm-intelligence-ai-honeybees/">enhance human intelligence</a>. Social media does the opposite. It distorts our collective intelligence and degrades our ability to make good decisions about our future. It does this by bending our perceptions of the public sphere.

Software Is Like A Knife

We humans are decision-making machines. We spend our lives capturing and storing information about our world and using that information to build detailed mental models. We start from the moment we are born. We sense and explore our surroundings, and we test and model our experiences. We keep building these models until we can accurately predict how our own actions, and the actions of others, will impact our future. Social media changes what it means to perceive our world and generalize our experiences. This distortion drives each of us to make significant errors when we build mental models.

Building Mental Models

The arena in which individuals come together to share issues of importance, exchanging opinions through discussion and deliberation. It is within the public sphere that society develops an understanding of ourselves — our collective wisdom. The public sphere of course does not represent a singular view. It encompasses the whole spectrum of views, spanning a range of cultural and political perspectives from mainstream to fringe. That spectrum represents our common reality.

Social Media and The Public Sphere

Social media has distorted the public sphere beyond recognition. Each of us now has a deeply flawed mental model of our own communities. This damages our collective wisdom, but it is not the content itself that is most responsible. We must instead blame the machinery of distribution.

A Distorted Mind

Social media has inserted itself between each of us and our daily experiences, moderating and manipulating the information we receive about our society.Platforms do this by profiling us over time and using those profiles to target us with selective content - custom curated news, ads, and posts that do not represent our society as a whole.

A Dangerous Middleman

<ul><li>The warped public sphere we each inhabit is not random. It is custom-curated to target us with information that will most likely resonate.</li><li>This dynamic amplifies extreme perspectives and drives polarization, but even worse, it destroys our collective wisdom as a society.</li></ul>

False Reality Becomes Fact

The biggest problem with social media is not the content itself, but the machinery of targeted distribution.To fix this, we have two options: ban profiling and targeting practices or make the strings visible so we know when we are experiencing distorted views of our world.

The Algorithm Is The Enemy

We can make the strings visible without disrupting business models, but we need to do it in an aggressive way. For example, we could require that every piece of content on social media be clearly labelled in ways that allow us to understand how it fits into the public sphere. Is it shared among large segments of the population? Or is it fringe content that is targeted and shared among very narrow groups? Providing such context would help restore our understanding of the public sphere.

Making Strings Visible

An outright ban on profiling and targeting would help restore the public sphere to a far less distorted representation of society. Unfortunately, the economy of social media is built on profiling and targeting. These practices form the core of most platforms’ advertising models. As such, major technology corporations would vigorously fight such restrictions.

Banning Of Profiling

Currently platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow users to see primitive targeting information about advertisements. To find this information, users need to click multiple times, which they will rarely do. We should push for transparency in targeting. This means requiring platforms to clearly disclose the demographic characteristics of the exposed population when targeting us with any piece of content that is not distributed broadly.

Building A Transparent Mechanism

It's not the content, but selective distribution that is the problem.

The biggest problem with social media is not content. It is the way it distorts the reality of the public sphere.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

writing

Reading & Writing

The problem with social media is not content but its distortion of reality

In 2022, video will be the king of social media content. 82% of consumer internet traffic goes to video. This is 15 times what it was in 2017 – a trend that was impossible to predict. We’re reading less than ever and, instead, users want to watch as much content as possible. This is why TikTok is on the rise as Facebook goes into decline. So if you want to raise your social media game this year, it all comes down to making awesome videos

The Background

The sheer amount of video content users are watching means that every click has a high opportunity cost. While they’ll want to watch hour-long videos occasionally, this means they’re missing out on 60 one-minute clips. In general, short and sweet videos get more views, earning your company more exposure.Having a shorter video also allows you to spend more time thinking about the quality of every shot. This means you can choose only the absolute best footage to blow your audience away.

Keep It Short

Many beginner video producers overlook the importance of sound. It’s easy to think that the visual quality is all that matters. However, audio is what tells the story. It creates the atmosphere, punctuating moments in time. People talking in the background, the whistling of the wind, or even complete silence can all paint a picture even more vividly than actual pictures.

Don’t Neglect Audio 

Online video was expected to be a bit grainy and shaky in the past. These days, though, there’s no excuse. With the average smartphone capable of creating beautiful 4K footage, uploading anything less than production quality is unforgivable. Even the biggest media companies now film using a standard iPhone. Most viewers will switch off if the quality of a video is lacking.You can easily learn some basic camera skills for free online. However, you’ll achieve better results by outsourcing the camera work to a professional.

Meet Professional Production Standards

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

videos

Videos

How to Make Awesome Videos for Social Media - Social Media Explorer

70% of companies say it’s cheaper to retain a customer than acquire a new one. The old rule of thumb says it costs 5 times more to acquire a new customer than it did to retain one. Engaged consumers buy 90% more frequently, spend 60% more per transaction, and are five times more likely to indicate it is the only brand they would purchase in the future. Doing the right thing at the right time can help retain customers.

Why is customer retention important?

Ask yourself these questions. Do you know the reason why your customer is canceling? Is this a surprise for you or do you already know the issue? Can the issue be solved? Look deeper why weren’t you able to get in front of the issue earlier, what attempts to solve have you already made (because there is no use trying those again), and consider what you haven’t already tried.

Analyze what you know.

Collect the voice of the customers at risk. This will help you be aware of many important things including the reason your customer bought your product, why they stuck around, and what made them cancel. The following methods and campaigns can be used to learn more about your customers:<ul><li>Social listening</li><li>Surveys</li><li><a href="https://customersuccessbox.com/blog/net-promoter-score-nps-in-customer-success-and-its-relevancy/">Net Promoter Scores</a></li><li>Support tickets</li><li>Interviews</li></ul>

Gain an Understanding of What Customers Want

Set up a workflow to determine which triggers to use based on the churn risk factors you’ve identified. For SaaS providers, you might look for customers that haven’t logged into their account for X number of days, didn’t complete the onboarding, or have stopped using your product. Do your clients avoid answering your calls and your emails? Do they cancel their meetings with you or your reps? This might be a sign their emotional attachment is decreasing on par with their satisfaction.

Build Workflows Around Your Customer Churn Red Flags

Churn is inevitable. But you need to analyze the real reason for the churn which helps you build up solutions against it. Use your churned customers’ feedback to avoid mistakes if any. Also if a customer is not satisfied with your product. Don’t let that customer walk out the door before you know why. The feedback here is very valuable for you.

Talk to the customers who are leaving

If you know you can’t solve it, or if the customer isn’t worth saving, you should probably move on. Ask yourself this question, Is this customer worth all the effort you are taking to save them? It is obvious that you cannot solve every cancellation reason? Maybe sometimes it’s not enough to just have a great product that solves a real problem. Or your customers have low adoption on their side and cannot use your product to the fullest.

Move on when the time comes

Every good customer is worth an all-out effort to retain them. This article talks about ways to retain customers before they cancel your subscription.

Discover the world of business and economics.

economics

Economics

business

Business

startup

Startups

How To Retain Customers Who Are On The Brink Of Churning

If you've ever said or thought these statements out loud you've wronged your customer.<ul><li>“I don’t have time to get customer input. I need to get this [insert blank] launched”</li><li>“I speak to a lot of customers, I know what they need”.</li><li>“I’ve got input from all of our internal stakeholders. It was hard enough getting everyone to agree. Let’s just go with what we have.”</li><li>“This is a best practice that others customer success managers have used. It will work for our customers too”.</li></ul>Although you're not alone you can always win them back by making them feel valued.

How you've wronged the customer

You’ve done this. You’ve launched a new part of the customer journey, a training course, an onboarding email series, a best practice document or maybe a revised QBR process and you didn’t seek out…

The customer is always wronged

<ul><li>Data-driven decisions, emphasize what tools you use to help make those decisions and site any examples that either helped prioritize a feature or got alignment from your leadership to more into a new market or product offering.</li><li>Leadership, can you bring people together and orient them around a common goal?</li><li>Empathy, how well do you know your customer?</li><li>Discovery, identify and explain Discovery frameworks that you’ve used.</li></ul>

Key skills of a product manager

<ol><li>Stay curious</li><li>Be empathetic</li><li>Understand quantitative and qualitative measures and the synthesizing of the two for solid decision making</li><li>Be organized</li><li>Work with a sense of urgency</li></ol>

Top 5 tips to be a good product manager

<ol><li>usability risk (can figure out how to use it)</li><li>feasibility risk (do we have the time, skills and technology needed to build this)</li><li>business viability risk (will consumers choose to buy it)</li><li>value risk (will consumers choose to use it)”</li></ol>

Presenting a research result of a business problem

Last week, Product School hosted Alex Crumpler, a Senior Product Manager at CNN for an exclusive #AskMeAnything session. Alex is a leader in building global storytelling products, and answered…

career

Career

product

Product & Design

Being an Excellent Storytelling PM with CNN Senior Product Manager

Product-led growth strategy is a methodology that positions the product as the primary driver of growth for the company. It’s cheaper, reaches more people, and has proven results for SaaS, B2B, and B2C companies.In a nutshell, product-led growth is a strategy that focuses on the product itself being the primary driver of growth for a company, rather than investing in expensive and elaborate marketing campaigns. When you want to attract new users, you do it by catering for them within your product, not sending out a flashy newsletter trying to convince them to buy.

What Does Product-Led Growth Mean?

<ul><li>It’s cheaper. You could pour tons of money into Product Marketing and create endless amounts of free content, and spend your valuable time hosting webinars, or, you could let your product do the talking. You’ll always need marketing, but a product-led strategy helps you scale it back.</li><li>It reaches more people. A freemium model effectively speeds the customer along their journey by getting them into your product sooner. The quicker you get them using it, the less time you have to spend nurturing them until they finally hit that ‘download’ button.</li></ul>

What Are the Benefits of a Product-Led Growth Strategy?

One of the latest buzzwords in the Product world is ‘Product Led-Growth.’ But what exactly does this mean? And does focusing on a product-led growth strategy make you a Growth Product Manager…

Product-Led Growth Strategy for Product Managers

<ul><li>Know your value. You want to understand that you bring value to your team, your product, and your company.</li><li>Speak your mind. You want to make sure that you are expressing your thoughts. You just want to ensure that you are part of the conversation and action, not a bystander.</li><li>Support others. One of the best ways to ‘show up’ as a woman leader is to help other people who are less typically promoted or listened to.</li></ul>

Make your mark and have your impact

<ul><li>Making an internal transition first. Given your context (and for many people), it can be easier to transition from one role to another in a company where you have already developed a positive reputation.</li><li>Be able to tell your story. Whether you make your transition internally first or between companies, you want to tell a compelling story as to why this new position suits you.</li><li>Continue to own your prior expertise. Many PMs have expertise in something — that is the idea of being T-shaped in your approach; where you have a niche of expertise as well as a breadth of abilities.</li></ul>

Advice for career pivots

<ul><li>Showcasing your accomplishments clearly. Whether verbally, in a resume, or on LinkedIn, you want to be able to clearly showcase what you have accomplished — and what the outcomes were of those accomplishments.</li><li>Talk about what you will do in this new position. Get clear on, if you were in this new position, what you WILL do. Claim it as your own.</li><li>NETWORK your way in!</li></ul>

Up-level from more junior positions to mid-level positions

Jocelyn Miller, a product leader who has previously worked for big names like Amazon and Google, joined us for a special AskMeAnything session this week. She chatted with the community and answered…

Google Product Manager Reveals Her Leadership and Career Tips

QBRs(Quarterly Business Reviews) are the perfect opportunity for you to reinforce the value your company is providing, a time to tout some of the “wins” you’ve achieved with your customers, and a chance to strategically grow accounts. While a lot of positives can come from a well-executed QBR, a lackluster meeting can lead to your client questioning the value you bring to the table.Here are my tips for delivering a strategic and promising QBR.

Delivering an Excellent Quarterly Business Review

QBRs are always a bit simpler when you have worked with a client since the beginning of their partnership with your brand. The goals and metrics you decide on initially can provide you with a good outline for your QBR. If you inherited a client, then a QBR is a good time to reset expectations. Glean what you can from your predecessor and your CRM. Either way, review the progress of the client over the past quarter, pull relevant metrics and reports, and check on any outstanding issues.

Prepare

QBRs are the perfect time to pull in both internal and client-side leadership and provide them with visibility into your partnership. Be respectful of their time, and be sure to provide them a candid overview of successes and challenges so far. Having executives involved can help you get the resources you need to move things forward, and can set you up for success when renewal time rolls around.

Invite Executives

Nothing speaks louder than metrics. Come to your QBR armed with data that highlight successes and provide insight into challenges. Be sure to have visuals like graphs and reports — more than half the population responds better to visual than verbal data. Always bring more information than you think you will need, that way you don’t get stumped by a tough question from leadership.

Provide Data

Be candid. Ask your client how they feel you’ve performed so far. This will give them the chance to provide you with honest feedback and let you know if their expectations are being met. In turn, be sure to share any concerns on your side: There are things your company needs to make the relationship a success. Finally, don’t be afraid to tactfully ask if you are on track to secure their contract renewal. It’s always good to gauge the temperature well in advance so you don’t end up with any surprises at the contract’s end.

Discuss Performance

Ensure the success of your next QBR by creating a follow-up plan for any action items and determining the right communication cadence for the next quarter. Finally, double-check that everyone is clear on the next steps.

Next Steps

Ah yes, the Quarterly Business Review, or QBR. These are essentially the book report on your time partnering with a client. It’s been at least a quarter since you started providing value, and now…

The best Product Managers are curious, hungry for knowledge, and always seeking new skills. there are lots of moving part in the product world, and the more of them you understand, the better!While it’s great to branch out and gain skills in new areas, it’s also key to solidify your knowledge and build up your core skills. Our certifications take your right from the basics of Product Management, including how to land your first job, to being a Product Leader.

Top 10 Courses for Products Managers — From Data to Design, and More

You don’t have to be a master artist to understand UX and UI, as <a href="https://productschool.com/blog/product-management-2/ux-essential-product-manager/?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=medium&utm_campaign=WeeklyArticles">these disciplines are just as much about technique, strategy, and research as they are creativity </a>. And there are key concepts that will help you communicate with your designers and understand what a great user experience looks like.

UX and UI Design Courses

<a href="https://learnux.io/">LearnUX </a>is a great place to get started if you’ve got no background in design. Their selection of courses take you right from the fundamentals of good UX design, through to tools like Invision, Framer, and Abstract. It also includes a workshop on basic HTML and CSS, ending with you building your own landing page.

1. LearnUX

Design+code offer courses best suited to those who already have some experience or a background in design, and are looking to improve. With their courses, you can really dive deep on a specific topic.

2. Design+Code

Do Product Managers need to be able to understand and write code? Not at all! It’s not your job to actually build the product. But it is your job to work with a tech team to ensure they’re building the right thing in the right way. Knowing code will help you feel more confident expressing your ideas and point of view, and will generally make communicating with your teams easier.

Coding and Programming Courses

SuperHi offer a <a href="https://www.superhi.com/courses/html-css-javascript-foundation">Foundation HTML, CSS + Javascript course </a>, which is best suited to those with a bare minimum understanding of code, and takes you through 8 weeks of coding projects.

3. SuperHi

<a href="https://online-learning.harvard.edu/course/cs50-introduction-computer-science?delta=0">CS50 </a>was born from instructor <a href="https://online-learning.harvard.edu/instructor/david-j-malan">David J. Malan’s </a>belief that anyone can learn computer science. It’s a free, online, self-paced version of Harvard University’s Intro to Computer Science, and requires absolutely no previous programming knowledge.

4. CS50

<a href="https://course.elementsofai.com/">Elements of AI </a>is a relatively new course, but already has 430,000 students enrolled from 170 countries. Another free course, this one takes you through things like solving problems with AI, the Bayes rule, how neural networks are built, and the societal implications of AI.

5. Elements of AI

This is <a href="https://developers.google.com/machine-learning/crash-course">Google’s free crash course on all things Machine Learning </a>, broken down into easy-to-find video classes. Stacked with cases studies, lessons from real machine learning practitioners, and hands-on exercises, it’s a great introduction to ML.

6. Machine Learning Crash Course

Data science is one of the subjects that looks the most intimidating to those who aren’t in the know. But the whole world is built on data, and that’s especially true in the product world! Time to dive in!

Data Science Courses

This course is best designed for those with a base knowledge of data who are looking to pick up some new knowledge. Whether Thats probability fundamentals in R, optimizing code performance on large Datasets, or optimizing Postgres databases.

7. Data Quest

This course has been Archived for now, but you can still access the course content. You'll come away from this course with a new appreciation of Statistics, and the ability to ‘ think like a statistical detective ’.

8. I Heart Stats: Learning to Love Statistics

For some, Product Management is their first real leadership role, which can be a learning curve. For some, leadership is a collection of soft skills that you can only pick up through being a leader. But if something can be learned, it can be taught.

Business Courses

Shaw Academy offer <a href="https://www.shawacademy.com/courses/business/online-leadership-course/">an online leadership course </a>, which does a great job of asking the question ‘ are you a manager or a leader ?’The course structure takes you all the way from a brand new leader, to proficiency, so there’s something in here for professionals at every level. We particularly recommend the final few classes on ‘Leading Through Change’ which will be especially helpful in 2020!

9. Shaw Academy

If you’re serious about crafting a career in leadership, the certificate in leadership and management from Upskilled is a great investment. This Australia based company offers a range of creative, technical, and business courses, and we particularly recommend their leadership course.

10. Upskilled

The best Product Managers are curious, hungry for knowledge, and always seeking new skills. there are lots of moving part in the product world, and the more of them you understand, the better! Here…