Blue Sky

I think turning 30 warrants a blog post. To say that time flies would be an understatement, but wow, what a 30 years it’s been! I wouldn’t trade anything to go back again, despite the quickening onslaught of the aging process.  The experiences I’ve had have been full of joy, pain, love, confusion, and laughter. Here are the lessons I’ve learned (and keep relearning), complete with music.

1) Live with conflict

Life really is a sum of contradictions. You can drive yourself crazy if you think that situations can be reduced to if A, then B, and if not B, then not A.  I think there is immense peace in accepting that some things are inexplicable and that paradoxes exist all around you and within you.  Walking away from something you want is the greatest paradox I struggle with. I think this conflict is wondrously represented in the movie, Where the Wild Things Are.  All our emotions are these wild monsters with wants running in every direction.
Miike Snow – Animal

2) Live with no conflict

See what I did there? Oh, the conflict. When I was younger, I used to think drama was a reflection of depth. You quickly learn that’s not the case through experience. There will be enough drama in life without seeking it out. To be at peace with peace is a gift.
Bloc Party – Ion Square

3) Say thanks when you’re grateful

There will never be a situation where there’s not enough time to say thanks. That’s all.
The XX – VCR

4) Fear is overrated

Fear is a terrible and wonderful thing. I know it protects us from making bad decisions, but it also paralyzes us from taking action.  Overcoming fear and the anticipation of pain, and just accepting the outcome has always ended up better for me, and yet, I still let it slow me down.  This lesson is definitely one I keep forcing myself to learn.
The National – Slow Show

5) Happiness is underrated

It is so much easier to be happy than sad. How did I not learn this for so long? Life is infinitely better when you’re focusing on the amazing stuff that’s happening all the time. My philosophy now is that if I can find something that makes me laugh every day, then incrementally, I’m doing really well in life.
The Boy Least Likely To – I’m Glad I Hitched My Apple Wagon To Your Cart

6) Forgive yourself

We’re all human, and making ourselves feel worse for the sake of punishment seems valueless. You learn from the things you do that make you feel bad, and then you move on and try not to make the same mistakes again.
Broken Social Scene – All to All

7) There is no single truth

Not to get too philosophical, but I think it’s rare to find a single truth in any situation.  The best explanation I’ve found supporting this theory is this amazing TED talk about the riddle of experience vs. memory.  Even when we are alone in our experience, we may think we know exactly what is happening, and our state in relation to it, but I think that constantly changes over time.  For example, let’s take the first time you fall in love. It’s amazing, mind-blowing, heart-wrenching. What if it ends badly with your partner cheating on you?  Do you still think about that relationship as a positive experience?  For me, ideally, I would like to give my memories the freedom to remain exactly how they were experienced. There doesn’t seem to be any value in taking away from what you’ve already gone through, and yet I think that’s perhaps an impossible goal. Hence, the conflict of multiple truths.
Stars – Your Ex-Lover is Dead

8 ) You get one life

Yes, it’s a cliche, but life really is too short. Don’t put things off, you only get one life to play, contrary to what video games teach us.
Mos Def f. DJ Honda – Travelin’ Man

9) Let your friends be there for you

I’m learning this one, slowly. I compartmentalize well, and I often do it unknowingly. I have to keep reminding myself there’s great joy and spontaneity in connecting on a deeper level, even if it means exposing your weaknesses.
Handsome Boy Modeling School – If It Wasn’t For You

10) Be kind

Like happiness, it is so much easier to be kind than mean. And it makes you feel so much better.
Black Eyed Peas – I Got A Feeling (Barletta edit)

So there you go, hello 30. Onward and upward!

I had thyroid surgery 3 and a half years ago. When my medical ordeal first began, I found myself searching online for information and not finding much in the way of personal stories. Hopefully somebody else who’s going through a similar situation will find this post and take comfort.

I had a 9mm x 7 mm x 8mm thyroid nodule that was discovered by my doctor during a routine annual exam in August of 2006. She suggested that I get an ultrasound just to be on the safe side. To the right is one of the ultrasound images. I have no idea how to interpret it, but I like the heatmap design!

The ultrasound didn’t show anything conclusive so an FNA was recommended for follow-up. An FNA is a fine-needle aspiration biopsy. From my research, I found that the results yielded from an FNA vary greatly based on the # of times the doctor has actually performed the procedure. I should state here that I have an irrational fear of needles, so the prospect of a large needle getting stuck into my neck repeatedly for cells was frightening, to put it lightly. But I also assumed that this mini-drama would come to a close after finishing the procedure.

Unfortunately the results were inconclusive. The ambiguity following each test was frustrating. Before we are confronted with our own personal medical problems, I think we all assume that medicine is more or less a black and white science. There must be a right and wrong, a good or bad result, something decisive. What I learned from my experience is that not only is there still a lot of grey in how a test result can be read and interpreted, but also that the recommended action can be disconcertingly different based on which doctor you’re talking to, which hospital you’re having your procedure in, and even what part of the country you live in. Here’s what my FNA result said:

Here’s what stuck out for me:

The risk of a malignant neoplasm is approximately 10-20%.

My doctor called me in the evening to tell me about my FNA results and let me know she had already called a thyroid surgeon at UCSF to get me an appointment for the following morning. This is the point where I began to worry. Having doctors hustle on your behalf is generally not a good sign. I went to the appointment alone, but I wouldn’t recommend that to others. I repeat, I would not recommend that to others. I had some silly idea of how I, a 26-year-old “adult”, should behave in this type of situation. But if I could give one piece of advice to others going through medical problems, it’s that you can and should rely on your family & friends. It’s not only comforting to have people you love with you, but it’s also practical because you’re getting a ton of information to process while your mind is seizing up with emotion already.

When I went to meet with the thyroid surgeon the following morning, he recommended that half of my thyroid be removed because it was the only way to determine whether the nodule was malignant. I was shocked because I’d assumed that at worst, I would just need to remove the nodule itself, which was quite small. The issue was that with the particular type of cells (follicular) found from the FNA, the only way to make a diagnosis was to examine the edge of the nodule and how it connected with the rest of my thyroid tissue. I tried to talk the surgeon into lowering the 20% estimate, pointing out how small the nodule was, how I wasn’t experiencing any symptoms of thyroid disease or general sickness, how young I was. Nothing would make him budge from his recommendation. Now, I want to pause and point out that if you have to have cancer, thyroid cancer is really one of the “best” cancers to get because the recovery rate is astonishingly high, something like 90-95% I think. So in that respect, I was lucky. I was also lucky because thyroid cancer grows very slowly, so I had time to do more research and talk to my smart friends and relatives in the medical field.

In searching my email, I came across this message I’d written to a thyroid Yahoo! group soon after meeting with the surgeon.

Hi, I’m new to this group and just found out I need to have half of
my thyroid removed because of a thyroid nodule found a couple months
ago. I had a FNA biopsy done and though the sample came back benign,
there is still a 20% chance that it’s malignant. I’m 26, and I feel
like it is not possible for it to actually be cancer. Has anyone
been in this situation and decided to wait and watch the nodule
instead of having the surgery? Does the surgery leave a very
noticeable scar? Thanks in advance…

I think that post just about sums up how I was feeling at the time: scared, angry, and in denial. Once I began to do research, I realized that I was fortunate to already be talking to some of the best thyroid doctors in the country at UCSF. I learned that you want to find a doctor that performs at least 50 thyroid surgeries a year. I ended up going with Dr. Duh at UCSF, and I think he performed something like 200 thyroid surgeries a year! There are serious differences in the procedure based on where you are. For example, 10 years ago, if you had thyroid surgery they would leave the wound open afterwards with a drainage tube. But research shows that the risk of infection is higher that way, so at UCSF, they just stitch you up and superglue the wound. Yes, superglue! For superficial purposes, it’s also important to have a surgeon who places the incision in your neck crease, so as you get older it becomes less and less noticeable amid all your glorious wrinkles. A less experienced surgeon also increases the risk of your vocal cords getting permanently damaged.

I deliberated whether to get the surgery or not for a couple months. On one hand, 10-20% seemed very low, and surgery seemed to present some less than desirable side effects, especially the scar I would have on the middle of my throat for the rest of my life. Yes, I obsessed over that scar. I tried to imagine how it would be to have people stare at my throat. Would I be able to feel it when I swallowed, when I touched my neck? On the other hand, if I never got the surgery, I would have to get blood tests and ultrasounds year after year to monitor my thyroid. I would always wonder if my next test or scan would be the one that showed something suspicious. I decided it was better to know than to wonder.

On January 11th, 2007, I had half my thyroid removed. What follows is an excerpted version of the email I sent to friends the following day.

Pre-Op: Got to UCSF at around 6am Thursday morning with the family and waited for my name to be called. You’re supposed to only be allowed to take 1 family member with you to the pre-op room where they put the IV in, but my dad finagled his way in with anesthesiologist status so I had both my sister and my dad with me. Once there, I had the opportunity to take off all my clothes and put on a lovely green-and-blue gown that flapped open appealingly in the back. My surgeon came by to explain what would be happening again, and mentioned that they most likely would not test the removed thyroid tissue at the time of the surgery because the cells were follicular, which would make it inconclusive. He said that in approximately 1 of 20 times though, he does order a frozen section to be tested during surgery if the tissue feels firm, because then it’s more worrisome that it’s papillary thyroid cancer. After waiting for awhile, the nurse and anesthesiologist came to talk to me and the nurse attempted to put the IV in. I say “attempted” because it was a giant, traumatic disaster. She tried on my right hand first and then my right elbow with no luck. Then the anesthesiologist took over and attempted my left hand. The vein was “blown” or “infiltrated” each time. This is when they decided they’d put me under with the mask before putting the IV in. Yes, I said, that sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately, this is when my dad decided that he would “take control” and put the IV in himself. Then a mini-Lily freakout moment occurred in which I wrestled my arm away from him with maniacal determination. I was then rolled to the operating room, had a mask put on me, took a few deep breaths, and the rest is history.

Post-Op: I woke up to people calling my name in the Post-Op room. I felt a little nauseous from the anesthesia so they put some stuff in my IV and I fell asleep again. Woke up later and was rolled into a unit with ~10 beds, each curtained off. I had asked for a private room multiple times, so I was a little confused as to how I ended up in the dorm unit. I spoke to the nurse about it, and according to Cathy, I was very intimidating in a scary, slow-speaking, drugged-out way. She says I sounded like the Godfather, which seems to me to be the ultimate compliment. Anyway, it was all for naught since I had to stay in the dorm the whole time.

I found out that I did happen to be the 1 out of 20 that got tested during the surgery because my surgeon was concerned with the tissue. Luckily the test came back benign or else I would have had my entire thyroid removed immediately. I still have to wait for the more in-depth test results to come back Wednesday afternoon, but I’m feeling pretty optimistic. As for the incision, it’s larger than I’d anticipated but I’m trying not to focus on it too much until the redness and swelling subside a little bit. I was told that it was fine to have soap and water on it, but to hold off on putting any scar cream or vitamin E until after I’d seen my doctor in my follow-up appointment. My voice is totally normal, so I’m really happy about that.

Anyway, the nurses were very nice and I got to eat a lot of popsicles during the night. Yum. My throat’s sore from the intubation, and my neck is obviously sore as well, but I had some Vicodin at the hospital and a fair amount more in a prescription waiting for me at Walgreen’s, so I should be a happy, happy girl for the next week.

The nodule turned out to be benign. Hooray! Aside from the blood tests every 4 months and ultrasounds once a year, my life has returned to normal very quickly. My little half thyroid did the work of a whole thyroid for about 6 months before beginning to produce less than I needed. So now I take a thyroid pill every morning and will for the rest of my life. Sure, sometimes it’s a pain to remember to take it and not eat for at least an hour afterwards, but I’m lucky because I don’t have any negative side effects from the pills.

In case you’re wondering about the scar, it healed miraculously fast. I have close friends I met a couple years after surgery who never even noticed the scar until I pointed it out months later. I didn’t do much to care for it aside from wearing scarves the first week and then trying to remember to wear Neosporin scar strips over it when I knew I would be out in the sun.

And that’s where the story ends for me, luckily. I had another thyroid ultrasound a few months ago where everything looked good so I’m cleared for another year!

Friends ask me sometimes if and how this experience changed my life. It’s hard to separate the surgery from other personal issues that were happening at the same time, but I would say that together they acted as a sort of pivot.  I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes and I didn’t make any radical changes, but I think it did make me value my relationships more.  You learn that your friends and family are really the most important part of your life, and while getting a salary and health insurance from your job is great, it’s not what’s going to get you through the dark times when your life gets rocked and the future is uncomfortably uncertain.

If you came across this post because you’re going through something similar, feel free to shoot me an email at lily[at]lilychiu.com with any questions or thoughts.

I’ve been wrestling with a post about teachers and education for the past 2 months but I can’t seem to get to the end of it. So while I continue to thrash on that subject, I thought I’d share some of the books, songs, and movies I’ve enjoyed lately.

Fiction: Ethan Canin’s America, America
I’ve loved reading ever since my parents first introduced me to the library as a young child. I find literature to be both a way to escape your physical and mental surroundings and a way to empathize with the world around you. I read America, America while on vacation in Corsica. Something about my gorgeous & peaceful surroundings and the way the story unfolds really clicked for me. I love novels that weave different stories together and jump between time periods.

Non-Fiction: Essays of E.B. White
It’s hard to believe most of these essays were written over 50 years ago. His perspectives are still relevant for the problems we face today, and his description of New York City and all its vulnerabilities is eerily foretelling.

Poetry: Yusef Komunyakaa’s Neon Vernacular
This collection is amazing, from beginning to end. Even if you don’t like poetry, you will find something to like here.

Movie: Where the Wild Things Are
Yep, just count me in the sea of masses who loved the book and movie. I felt like I was riding an unpredictable and thrilling wave throughout the movie that travelled through all of the emotions you wrestle with as a child, and most likely throughout your whole life. I love the depiction of the wild things, and how utterly human and authentic the movie felt.

Music: Miike Snow, The xx, Kid Cudi, Metric, Florence + The Machine, Amanda Blank
I’m copping out here because I can’t pick just one. Sometimes I need music to keep me going in a workout, and sometimes it helps mellow me out after a long day of work. Listed is a big mix of different styles, although if I had to pick the one I’m currently listening to most, it’d have to be Miike Snow. Download: A Horse Is Not A Home

So there you have it. I think art has the ability to revive, heal, calm, and generally have a magical effect on us. My high school writing teacher had this poster on the wall that he would point to repeatedly. It said “Life Imitates Art. Art Imitates Life.” And that’s all I need to say.

What did you enjoy reading, watching or listening to this summer? Would love to hear in the comments!

“Man is different from animals in that he speculates, a high-risk activity.”
- Edward Hoagland

 
I’ve parked my scooter in the same location next to my front door for the last 2 and a half years. I pull into the driveway and then turn 90 degrees to the right – easy, convenient, and completely repetitive. A couple days ago, I almost wiped out for the first time a foot from my door because I forgot the first lesson everybody learns in riding: do not brake and turn at the same time.

It got me thinking about how careless I can get with the things that are important to me, and how the end of something can often be traced back through multiple obvious steps. My first mistake was pulling into the driveway too fast. My second was still thinking I’d get the turn fine. My third was braking hard mid-turn because I realized I was still accelerating too fast. Luckily I was going slow enough that I was able to prevent myself from going down. But the feeling of WTF was quickly replaced by, “I’m a damn idiot.”

The same principle applies across so many scenarios though, like relationships, health and work. The minute you begin letting up in care and focus is the pivotal moment in hindsight. Take the person who’s quit smoking for 5 years and then starts again. From the surface, you can’t understand how or why that would ever happen. But they already quit for so long!, you think. And yet, it’s so seductively easy to fall under the spell of thinking you can control things instead of working to manage them. You can have just one cigarette because you’ve already quit, right?

We enter a milestone-driven culture the minute we’re born: first word, first day at school, first kiss, first degree. And then we’re suddenly ejected at our last graduation. Now what? We begin creating our own milestones because it’s the only thing we’ve ever known. I have close friends who are extremely intelligent, driven, and have very clear goals. Their goals include wanting to make 10 million dollars (a number reached through thoughtful calculation), getting married within the next 5 years, getting into a top-tier school for their MBA, and finding true love (you know who you are, my dear!).

I admire people who have this type of drive and foresight because I’ve never been able to know what I wanted very far into the future. I like what I like now, I suppose. And yet, I’m also skeptical that many long-term goals can truly be as fulfilling as the anticipation. We talk about goals as if they’re binary, but doesn’t the satisfaction of achieving a goal decrease over time unless you constantly watch it? Every goal seems to have a reverse path: marriage -> divorce, lose weight -> get fat, make money -> lose money.

Isn’t the natural order to slide into reverse if you stop tending to the present? Yes, you graduated from college, but what did you learn? You got married, but did you take care of your spouse and yourself? You exercised and dieted off the extra 15 pounds, but are you still exercising and watching your diet? Or, for me, I learned to ride a scooter and then, 3 years later, I forgot the first lesson.

It’s not that I don’t believe in goals, but I don’t trust goals as a measure of happiness. When I was in high school, I worked very (or, sorta) hard to be a good Asian-American daughter who did well and got good grades. And, as all Asian-American kids know, the pinnacle of your high school success is measured by your SAT score. So I worked really, really hard because I wanted to get a great score that made my parents happy. And the crazy thing is that I did really well. So I called my parents from my dorm at Milton and told them the happy news. They responded with joy and elation. But I felt nothing, or rather, I felt intense disappointment. It was a really eye-opening experience for me, and I’d have to say that it’s shaped a large part of my life and my philosophies about happiness.

You might ask what this has to do with never being too old to be happy. I would answer that I’m not quite sure, except that I’ve had long conversations with friends lately who find themselves unhappy with where they are in life. Yet, from everything I know about them, they are some of the most intelligent, kind and accomplished people I’ve ever met. It doesn’t compute to me. I would prefer the concept of a happiness that is not contingent on an achievement, a happiness that I expect to ebb and tide because isn’t that just how life really goes anyway? So I’m trying to think more about what I have and what I need, and less about what I don’t.

I went to a fantastic talk by Hartmut Esslinger recently, where he spoke about his career as a designer, and he said many things that resonated with me. I’m paraphrasing poorly, but when asked about what products he likes, he named the iPhone because you can readily see that a lot of care went into creating it. The idea that care and attention to detail can be a manifestation of love is one that really resonates with me. I think it’s also what makes the difference between being good at something and being great at it. Anyone can create a prototype, but it’s the follow-through that counts. And the reality is that we can only care and focus on so many things at once, and anybody who says differently is super-human, lying or deluded.

I’d rather have a smaller life paying great care to the people and things I love than a larger life that misses out on those moments that can only come from time, depth and awareness. Being in San Francisco and surrounded by amazing talents, it’s easy to get caught up on everything you haven’t done yet. This city is like none other, and that’s both a great and terrible thing.

I have no deep thought to leave you with, so instead I’ll just tell you a few of the things that have made me happy this past weekend: had empanadas and a beer sitting outside with a friend on a warm San Francisco evening, drove solo down the coast to Pescadero and laid out in the sun with a cool breeze and a fantastic book (<– photo), ate a yummy meal at Maverick with friends and many laughs (admittedly, some of them uncomfortable), met a bunch of new people excited about the future of education and working on their own ideas of how to make it better, and received a sweet message from a great friend I’ve made in the last year. Pretty awesome for just a few days, eh?

I read an excellent post on extroversion and social media by Fred Wilson lately and it got me thinking about the impact social media’s had on my own life as an introvert.

These days, being an introvert feels like a bad thing. Any time I talk to friends or acquaintances and mention in conversation that I’m an introvert, the response I get back most often is, “Oh no you aren’t! You’re great at talking to people.” It makes me laugh, because I’m pretty sure introvert doesn’t have to mean socially-awkward hermit, but the reaction implies that there is something very wrong indeed. Here’s the Wikipedia definition from the Meyers-Brigg page:

The terms extravert and introvert are used in a special sense when discussing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. People who prefer extraversion draw energy from action: they tend to act, then reflect, then act further. If they are inactive, their level of energy and motivation tends to decline. Conversely, those who prefer introversion become less energized as they act: they prefer to reflect, then act, then reflect again. People who prefer introversion need time out to reflect in order to rebuild energy.

The extravert’s flow is directed outward toward people and objects, and the introvert’s is directed inward toward concepts and ideas. There are several contrasting characteristics between extraverts and introverts: extraverts are action-oriented and desire breadth, while introverts are thought-oriented and seek depth. Extraverts often prefer more frequent interaction, while introverts prefer more substantial interaction.

See, it’s okay, don’t feel bad for me and your introverted friends! (You can still feel bad for the socially-awkward hermit if you’d like) I actually very much enjoy talking to people, but when I have to meet a lot of people at a party or networking event, the moment I most cherish is afterwards when I get some alone time or time with just close friends. It gives me time to get a mental breather.

Here’s where I differ from Fred Wilson’s post though – I don’t think social media increases extroversion, I think it simply enables both introverts and extroverts to deepen the types of connections that they draw energy from. For example, I use Twitter and FourSquare quite heavily and enjoy talking to friends and “strangers”, but both mediums allow me to very selectively choose who I want to interact with. That’s an introvert’s dream! I love Twitter because I can have very interesting dialogues with people I’ve never met, but I can also let a lot of other content go by without response. I love FourSquare for exactly the opposite reason – I only want my close friends to know what I’m doing at any point in time, and I also don’t care about what strangers are doing (because I’m too much of an introvert to introduce myself if we happen to be in the same place!). I’ve also made the decision a few months ago to not accept any Friendfeed invites from people I don’t personally know. There is a point where it becomes too much sharing for me, and right now that’s where the line falls, but it’s constantly in flux.

I think there’s a need for both introverts and extroverts in society, and yet there’s this growing mentality that being an introvert means you’re just somebody who hasn’t progressed socially enough to be an extrovert yet. I disagree intensely, although I do feel the pressure to put myself out there more, especially when it comes to work/business and fostering relationships. But then it comes back to the difference between introverts and extroverts, I’d rather have a few very deep relationships than the burden of managing many shallow ones. I’ll never be the person who meets everybody in the room by the end of the night, and hopefully that will work out for me. At the end of the day, I’m quite happy that I can enjoy the pleasure of both my own company and yours!

Once upon a time, there was this blog post that lived on lilychiu.com for months without a peep. And then a funny tweet went out, and suddenly everyone wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

There was intrigue, drama, and mystery, and then the post went *poof* in the day. Instead, people saw a bunny with a pancake on his head. They were pleased and yet not. Life went on, but Lily felt unhappy about the missing post.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Today, the post is back. Not for controversy or more intrigue, but because I thought long and hard about its content, and the larger topic of writing publicly, and it didn’t and doesn’t make any sense to take it down. Am I ever going to write a post that trashes a single person or company? Definitely not. But can I write a post about what I’ve experienced and observed that leaves interpretations open to the reader? Absolutely. At the end of the day, isn’t that what all great writing is about?

I would love for those on the other side of the fence (hiring managers, *maybe* my former employers ) to comment. As a postscript to my previous post, a former manager who I respect and like very much once told me that he couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t get bored in another 6 months to a year if he promoted me. It was a fair assessment, and helped move me toward the conclusion that I really needed to move on to another role and company entirely. I appreciated the counsel he gave me, and I really believe that that type of open dialogue makes a workplace a hell of a lot more happy.

So enjoy, there will be no more posts that go *poof* on this site.

- Lily

Life Without Twins

Life With Twins

My sister is a trooper!

It’s been a long time coming, but Testing Thursday is finally here! I’ve been working on different ways to get people to collaborate about web optimization for quite awhile, and to be quite honest, I haven’t been very successful. I’m hoping that all we needed was a little alcohol to get the conversation going. Luckily, Testing Thursday to the rescue! It’s essentially a sponsored happy hour where all the testing pros come together to talk about the cool stuff they’re doing. We have 30 people RSVP’d so far and still have another week to go. I’m really excited to announce that Avinash Kaushik will be attending as well and saying a few wise words To RSVP, head on over to the invite: http://www.socializr.com/event/338727731. I’m also working on getting TestingThursdays.com up and running soon. Thoughts on how I can make things better? Please comment! Also, we need a Testing Thursdays logo – throw your contribution into the ring!

I’ve met a lot of amazing marketers at startups and smaller companies in the last month and a half who are just beginning to get their feet wet with testing. Most of them have run 1 or 2 tests, and are hesitant to take the next step of investing more time & money in resources and/or a platform. Here’s the question I get most often: is testing worth it? Is a testing platform worth it?

My answer is yes and no. On a theoretical level, yes, of course testing is worth it! Testing reveals insights about your site, it empowers you to ask questions to your customer and answer hypotheses that you would otherwise wonder about and internally debate! Testing also helps you increase performance on your site, thereby giving you the ability to spend more money on acquisition. However, testing also takes time. More importantly, it takes real, thoughtful, strategic intelligence. If you half-ass your testing and don’t have the time to come up with great ideas and also act on the results, you will not get your ROI.

Back at Offermatica, we used to liken a testing platform to a gym. You could belong to the best gym in the world, but if you don’t get your ass into it, you won’t lose weight. It’s plain and simple. Likewise, if you don’t exercise your site, you won’t see the lift. Garbage in, garbage out.

Testing also takes time and traffic. If you’re a company that’s just starting out, I question whether testing is the best place to spend your time and money. LunaMetrics has a nice post on just this topic. I think you should have a threshold of at least 50 conversion events per day before beginning to test. I look at testing as a great way to maximize your ad spend. If I’m spending a hundred dollars to acquire 100 people at $1 per head, increasing my conversion rate by 50% means I can now acquire 150 people for the same spend. That’s a worthwhile effort if I can test quickly and get to that answer in a couple weeks. I can then decide whether to spend more money acquiring traffic through my optimized funnel now, or re-allocate my spend to other channels.

But I’ve also talked to a lot of companies that are running lean and mean, just like we are at eduFire! If you’re one person in charge of all your marketing efforts, you probably don’t have time to run more than 1 or 2 tests a month. In that case, you really have to focus on prioritizing test ideas and going with strong hypotheses on high-traffic pages to maximize your effort. Would I recommend buying a testing platform? Probably not, unless you have the budget that you’re willing to dedicate towards hiring a resource to manage it. A platform does not run by itself, even the ones who say they do! At a minimum, you still need to load that platform up with stellar alternatives to run against whatever it is that you’re trying to improve. Rinse, lather and repeat.

A strategy of throwing mediocre stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks is not a strategy at all. It’s more like going to the gym once a month and walking on the treadmill for 20 minutes. I suppose there’s some value to getting your heart rate up, but you might not get the results you’re hoping for by the time bikini season rolls around.

What I’m trying to say is that testing *is* worth it, but only if you make the investment. And your investment cannot be just the platform, regardless of whether the platform is free or paid. Yes, more sophisticated platforms like Omniture Test&Target cost money, but I would wager that the greater “cost” is the time required to rally the organization around optimization and understand both the technical and strategic intricacies of whatever platform you are adopting. These are inherent whether you are using a free platform like Google Website Optimizer or not. (This is not to detract from GWO, I think it’s a great option for companies who are prepared to begin testing!)

Maybe one of the most important questions to ask yourself in determining whether it’s time to start testing is to investigate the amount you’re spending on acquisition. If you are spending a significant amount, then you absolutely should begin testing to maximize your budget most effectively. The other thing to look at is the amount of traffic your site is receiving. If you’re getting a lot of organic traffic, more power to you. Now optimize your funnel so you can begin spending money on other acquisition efforts as well!

So remember, testing is not a free ticket to lift. You have to work at it, just like everything else. But the benefits of working on the site spread to all of your efforts off the site as well. Now that’s a really good reason to begin testing!

As somebody who recently switched jobs, I feel I can offer some helpful advice to companies who are looking to reduce churn. I’m often surprised when I hear managers say “I didn’t see it coming at all!“. The signs are glaringly obvious. This post is meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, and yet still 100% factual. Without further ado, in increasing orders of magnitude:

1) Your employee takes a lot of private calls in the conference room/empty offices. This one’s definitely ambiguous. Maybe they’re taking some recruiting calls, maybe they just got a new boyfriend they really like. It’s a tough call, but it might be time to pay closer attention.

2) Your employee talks about being so busy with work, but they don’t seem to be working that hard. It seems curious when your employee never has any free time, and yet, their workload hasn’t increased. There’s a reason though. It’s because they’re working hard on their resume and networking.

3) Your employee starts dressing like it’s their first day on the job again. Oops! This probably means they’re already out interviewing. Did they get in late? Take a long lunch? Leave work early to feed the dog? Yep, they are beginning to sniff around.

4) Your employee takes a lot of personal days at the beginning of the year. As everybody knows, you want to meter out your personal days evenly throughout the year in case something comes up and you need some time off. If your employee starts burning through all their days at the start of the year, it probably means they’re not planning on sticking around much longer. Letting your personal days run out means you’re committed to the idea of leaving.

5) Your employee says they’re unhappy. Ding ding ding! This list is not in chronological order. In my personal experience, I’ve always given off this bell first, but employers like to play chicken. I’ve heard all the reasons – it’s a down economy, no job will ever pay as well, this is the best job you’ll ever get, you should be satisfied, there will be opportunities down the road. Here’s the problem, none of those reasons matter when you have a smart, motivated and ambitious employee who wants to continue to learn and be challenged.

So here’s the lesson I hope to leave you with – your best people will always have opportunities elsewhere, no matter what’s going on with the economy or industry. If you can be just as successful without them, then continue to ignore the signs. But no complaining when the inevitable happens, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

None of this is to say that employers should take the Google route of algorithmically trying to detect who’s more likely to leave. At the end of the day, I think you’re probably not doing a stellar job as a manager if you need a program to tell you when your employee’s looking to leave instead of just listening to them and looking out for the glaring signs above. It’s also both the employer’s and employee’s responsibility to examine whether they’re doing right for the employee and the company. I really respect managers who acknowledge that taking another opportunity is a better choice for somebody, even when it means their own team is going to take a hit. Got other warning signs to look out for? Add them in the comments – here’s to a happy workplace!