Book Review: Space Team

I used to write book reviews all the time on here, back when I had a lot of free time (I guess?).  Used to be for each book I read, I'd provide some commentary.   (Amazon links below, if you click on them and buy stuff, you're helping to buy me coffee. Thanks in advance!)

But, I'd like to be a little more regular about this, last one might have been April 2018? Yikes.

I don't know how long ago, I read a book called "The Sidekicks: A Funny Superhero Adventure" - the superheroes of the world have all been killed and now the world is being overrun by supervillains. The government only has one option - years earlier, the superheroes had young sidekicks. The program had been discontinued and the kids had grown up, but now the government needs to call them back to service. It is as described: laugh out loud funny. I kept waiting for the next one, but it hasn't come out yet. (In a similar vein, Andrea Vernon and the Corporation for UltraHuman Protection and Andrea Vernon and the Superhero Industrial Complex - also highly recommended)

Anyhow, looking for another Sidekicks book (it is supposedly coming but not out yet), I found that the author had another series, 12 books starting with "Space Team: A Funny Sci-Fi Space Adventure" (I'm sensing a theme with the titles) and I figured I'd give it a try - I'm always looking for long series I can retreat into for months at a time. This delivers. I am regularly laughing at this book and these characters, and I feel like the author and I consumed a lot of the same pop culture growing up.  (The book has a few side books and even a few free online mini-stories, so there's a lot of content here.)  Books are usually 0.99-3.99 each and so darned funny. Highly recommended.

What's it about? This dude goes to jail for petty crime, gets put in jail with a hardened criminal, there's a case of mistaken identity, the dude finds himself in space with a few other species and sent on a mission by a governmental organization. The species are all much more advanced than our earth dude and they can communicate with one another through a chip implanted in their head. The chip also has a censor circuit which means when the characters curse, they end up saying things like "fonking" and "son of a bedge" which also adds to the humor and lets them be a little coarser without actually being coarse. The books follow their exploits through space... and time... and multiple dimensions... these are like popcorn books, great for reading before bed, or on a plane and would make for some really funny movies.

Nature-Themed Child's Birthday Party

A few years ago, my wife did a "nature themed" birthday party for one of our kids. I thought it was really cool, so I've been meaning to write about it forever. (Like I've postponed the task in my to-do list over 500 times forever.) I think it was difficult to appreciate just how much my wife put into these, so let me brag a little.  Click through on any picture for more pictures. Maybe one of these years I'll share some of the Harry Potter themed party. That included a 2-story wall of decrees. 

Gift Bags: Pretzels, Marshmallows, Raisins, Chocolate Chips, Goldfish Grahams, Peanuts

Gift Bags: Custom-made Bookmarks

Gift Bags

Saltine Toffee, fashioned to look like bark

A giant tree, made from tissue paper and Amazon packing paper

Table decorated with roughed up butcher paper and ferns from the yard

Hedgehog Cheese Ball (these kids were eating well!)

Paint-a-Birdfeeder as a craft activity

Acorns (donut-holes), Bark (saltine toffee) and some kind of marshmallow cookie

Three Days

 I feel like I need three days. Three days to get caught up on stuff at home and three days to get caught up on stuff at work.  I don't know if I could relax after the three days, or if I would just feel "caught up" and ready to tackle stuff. I think I'm coping alright as we come up on a full year of quarantine, but I feel like I'm behind.

Recently, we arranged my son's room and the living room, in both cases, yielding layouts that feel more open.  I'm energized by this. Growing up, I constantly moved the furniture around in my room. Drove my parents nuts, but I liked the variety. Now all grown up, it's harder to just move everything around on a whim. Did it once to the living room in our college dorm without telling my roommates. They were not amused. Now in our little house, there's only so many ways you can arrange furniture so stuff rarely moves. Last thing you want to do is stumble around in the dark and kick furniture that wasn't where it was last night.

I'm breaking records with chores completed this week. Maybe I only need three days at work.  What I really need to do is block another evening this week to go sit on the back porch and drink coffee in the evening after dinner. Weather has been amazing. 

Lori and I are fully vaccinated, her mother-in-law is half-vaxed and we're working with the school district because they really want our son back at school on early-return. But it's complicated because he can't wear a mask. But I guess that's something they'll work on with him. Hopefully they'll have more luck than we did.

I really don't know what I'm doing here with this post, except that I'm way overdue to write something. I guess with this blog you don't get quantity OR quality. Good times.

120: Stuck

 The pocketwatch seemed to be stuck. I was holding it in my hand, but as soon as I pressed the button on the side, it became stuck. I couldn't move it. I slowly opened my hand and lowered it. The pocketwatch hung in midair where I'd left it. This shouldn't be possible. I stared at it. It was no longer ticking. In fact, it was quiet. Everything was quiet. I couldn't hear the traffic outside or my family downstairs shouting back and forth to one another. I listened, but there was nothing. I reached out to the watch again, prodding it. I wrapped my fingers around it and pulled. Very slowly, with much effort, I was able to bring it towards me. But as soon as I stopped, it was stuck again. I pressed the button on the side a second time and the watch dropped into my hand and I was knocked over by the sudden overwhelming sensation of sound - the cars, the kids, the ice cream truck, a plane overhead, my dad downstairs yelling to my mom. 

It couldn't be, right? I had read a book about a magic pocketwatch when I was a kid, but now here in my my grandfather's house, going through his old things, I had to be imagining things. Pocketwatches that could stop time were a thing of fantasy, right?

I dropped the pocketwatch into my pocket, climbed down the ladder from the attic and headed downstairs to where my mom was inventorying furniture and my dad was looking through my grandfather's file cabinet.  I ran past both, threw open the front door, reached into my pocket, pressed the button. 

and.
everything.
stopped.  

Well, this was going to be fun.

"120" is the umbrella under which I place my creative writing (it's been a long time! Again!) - it refers to one of the practices: writing for 120 seconds on a single topic with no chance to go back and edit - there may be mistakes, typos, embarrassing spelling errors.  Such is the nature.  I might continue writing after the timer ends, but it's about sitting down and writing something. (This one didn't go according to plan, I kept getting interrupted. Oh well, at least I wrote something.) Click here to read more 120s.

Program Your Sleep

I recently wanted to clear up space on my nightstand, so I moved my CPAP machine to one of the drawers in the nightstand. When it's not in use, I can curl the hose up in the drawer and close the drawer most of the way (only the power cord prevents full closure).  

I never really used the drawer, so it still has a fresh woodsy smell. So now so does the air that the CPAP machine brings in.   When I was replacing the air filter the other day, it hit me:

What if there were scented air filters or oils for CPAP machines?

Naturally, I threw a bag of coffee in the drawer.  But, what if there was a new opportunity here?

In the simplest form, you could have vanilla or lavender or any number of those scents they put in candles.

Most CPAPs have a compartment for distilled water, with a heater underneath to warm the water. I don't know if it would mess it up to have scented oils or Vicks Vaporub in the same compartment to deliver smells/medicine to you while you slept. Because if you could, a fancy CPAP machine could release different smells at different times, allowing you to program your sleep.  Maybe you start off with the smell of evergreens and after a few hours, the smell of the ocean and right before your alarm goes off, coffee or toast. This could launch a whole new line of premium CPAP machines.

2021 Charities

Welcome to 2021. As we start off this new year, it's almost as if last year didn't exist. But as I start to work on my taxes and look at where we made charitable contributions last year, I'm reminded of this yearly tradition to recommend a few places you might consider helping out in the new year. 2020 was so messed up that now as I look at last year's post, I realize I didn't even contribute to either recommendation. I will take care of that this week.

Please consider joining me in supporting these charities in 2021:

* No Kid Hungry - They feed kids. It's one of my wife's favorites. 

* Little Free Library Foundation - your gift helps them get books into more communities. 

* NAACP Legal and Education Defense Fund - they did a matching thing at work with the LDF last year and when I donated, I told them I did not want any solitications for future gifts and they honored my request. I haven't heard from them since. I know charities don't necessarily like that, but it means my gift wasn't spent on fundraising.

Charities on the naughty list for wasting my past donations on way too many mailings: Wounded Warrior and Sierra Club. Yes, Sierra Club. Oh my gosh, they send me so much crap and I've asked them to stop so many times. I don't believe they actually care about the environment. 

2020 Charities

* Bithiah's House

* RAICES (The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services)

2019 Charities

* Autism Society

* Burbank Arts for All

* Women of Email

View-Time Optimization (VTO) is a bad idea

 I recently saw a post on LinkedIn suggesting "Send-Time Optimization is Dead, Long Live View-Time Optimization" but they're wrong.  VTO is a bad idea.

First, what is Send-Time Optimization (STO)?  

In your toolbox of "right message, right person, right time" STO is the best-guess about when you send your next email. 

For a long-standing subscriber, you can use it at the individual-level.  For segments and audiences with a number of newer subscribers, you can do it at the campaign level. And for prospects and brand-new customers (or if you have a lot of churn in your subscription base), you can do it at the program or organizational level.

Some drawbacks - it impacts forecasting and planning. You have to establish a window for deployment, so you have to carefully consider when to send the next email after that. It's also not useful with time-sensitive opportunities and limited-time sales. 

Also, behavior patterns change over time. If your analytical model is slow to catch a shift in trends or if there are events or competitive changes it has no way to be aware of or consider, it can end up being wrong in its predictions.

Still,  it has been proven to increase opens and clicks and decrease opt-outs (to a statistically significant degree), which makes it a win-win for customers and companies alike. Programmatic Automations, Journeys and Metered/Deferred Deployments are other methods with similar aims.

So, what is View-Time Optimization (VTO)?

In mid-2020, SendGrid announced an exclusive offering with VMG in a blog post and only really recommended it for Winback and Re-engagement Campaigns.  

This has apparently ended as now Validity is announcing an exclusive offering with with Verizon Media Group for VTO. There aren't a lot of details, but here's what I've been able to figure out.

Validity says the top email in a person's inbox is 2x as likely to be opened as even the second email. VTO happens entirely on the VMG side. When you open the app, a VTO-enabled email is placed at the top of your inbox. 

How it works

You tell Validity how many "credits" you want to apply to the campaign. This determines how many people will be treated to the VTO experience. 

You tell Validity how VMG can spot your VTO campaign. This can be a static subject line, a body tag or an X-Header, depending on what your ESP will allow. 

You also tell Validity what to do at the end of the campaign.  The options were not explained in the video. Hopefully it just places the rest in the inbox without any credit deducted. 

Then you send your campaign normally through your ESP. 

VMG recognizes your VTO-enabled campaign and holds it. As soon as the recipient opens their inbox (app or webmail), the campaign is placed into the top of their inbox. Because this doesn't rely on a tracking pixel/beacon, this will work even if a user has images off.  But, again, limited to AOL/Verizon customers.

So what will I learn from this campaign?

Your ESP will tell you that all messages were sent and delivered, even if they haven't yet made it into the customer's inbox. Bounces will still be handled in real-time. Where STO will tell you when the message was sent, you will have less analytics with VTO.

Campaign results will be available within the Validity portal 48 hours after the campaign concludes. (The end of the window you specify.) Because they are working with Verizon, they will have open and click rates, probably better than you get with your own ESP or Analytics tool that relies on a tracking pixel.  

Again, this is only for VMG mailboxes like Yahoo and AOL. For your own analytics, you might end up splitting AOL, Yahoo, Verizon.net and others into their own separate send so that you can match up your analytics to what you see in the Validity portal. They didn't say, but hopefully there's exportable data you can bring back to your own systems for additional analysis.

Questions that were unanswered after reading up on VTO on Validity's site:

• Do they still get notified as soon as the email is delivered if they have app notifications turned on? 
   
• What if multiple people pay for VTO to the same customer? Which message appears in that coveted top spot? Or does it work once for each app open? Or is your message delivered but no credit deducted if you don't get the top spot?
   
• What if you just keep the webmail open in a tab? Deliver normally with no credit deducted?
   
• What does this do for POP/IMAP? Deliver normally with no credit deducted?
   
• How does this work with messages or senders who are filtered or have been previously sent to spam?
   
• What does the "end of campaign" look like? Does it dump all emails into a user's inbox at the time that the last credit is spent? Does it dump them at the end of the window? But they do all eventually get delivered, right?
   
• Does the message "pop-in" after the app has loaded, or is it just waiting there at the top of the list?
   
• People are 2x more likely to open, but what's comparison rates for clicks, time-spent reading/scrolling, or opt-outs?

To Recap

This is a pay-for-play scheme limited only to a small number of the internet's inboxes that tries to game the system for people's limited time and attention. For some senders, it could lead to fatigue or have a negative impact by making it look like they're always sending emails. 

May require a re-thinking of how you assess efficacy of a campaign or at least considerations towards the change in behavior at these inboxes. 

Lastly, it rewards Verizon and Validity for monetizing what has been an open and free system. (Verizon has been rumored to be working to kill tracking pixels from ESPs, Litmus and others.)

Is it worth it?

I don't think so.  The application, coverage and utility will be limited, the overall metrics are unproven. I also think there are a lot of important unanswered questions. Validity can probably answer some of them, but have intentionally chosen not to in their current explanation of the program. 

(Cross-posted to LinkedIn)